^ The Faeroes, Greenland and Iceland were Norwegian possessions until 1814, as Norway was united with Denmark.

^ The currency, printed with Faroese motifs, is issued at par with the Danish krone, uses the same sizes and standards as Danish coins and banknotes and incorporates the same security features. Faroese krónur (singular króna) share the Danish ISO 4217 code "DKK".

The Faroes' terrain is rugged, and the islands have a subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc): windy, wet, cloudy, and cool, despite this island group's northerly latitude, temperatures average above freezing throughout the year because of the Gulf Stream.

Between 1035 and 1814, the Faroes were part of the Hereditary Kingdom of Norway; in 1814, the Treaty of Kiel granted Denmark control over the islands, along with two other Norwegian island possessions: Greenland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands have been a self-governing country within the Kingdom of Denmark since 1948,[8] the Faroese have control of most domestic matters. Areas that remain the responsibility of Denmark include military defence, the police department, the justice department, currency, and foreign affairs.[9] However, as they are not part of the same customs area as Denmark, the Faroe Islands have an independent trade policy, and can establish trade agreements with other states, the islands also have representation in the Nordic Council as members of the Danish delegation. The people of the Faroe Islands also compete as a national team in certain sports.

In Danish, the name Færøerne may reflect an Old Norse word fær (sheep). The morpheme øerne represents a plural (with definite article) of ø (island) in Danish, the Danish name thus translates as "the islands of sheep". In Faroese, the name appears as Føroyar. Oyar represents the plural of oy, older Faroese for "island". The modern Faroese word for island is oyggj; in the English language, their name is sometimes spelled "Faeroe", similar to "faerie".[10][11]

Archaeological evidence shows settlers living on the Faroe Islands in two successive periods prior to the arrival of the Norse, the first between 400 and 600 and the second between 600 and 800.[12] Scientists from the University of Aberdeen have also found early cereal pollen from domesticated plants, which further suggests people may have lived on the islands before the Vikings arrived.[13] Archaeologist Mike Church noted that Dicuil (see below) mentioned what may have been the Faroes, he also suggested that the people living there might have been from Ireland, Scotland or Scandinavia, possibly with groups from all three areas settling there.[14]

A Latin account of a voyage made by Brendan, an Irish monastic saint who lived around 484–578, includes a description of insulae (islands) resembling the Faroe Islands, this association, however, is far from conclusive in its description.[15]

Dicuil, an Irish monk of the early 9th century, wrote a more definite account. In his geographical work De mensura orbis terrae he claimed he had reliable information of heremitae ex nostra Scotia ("hermits from our land of Scotland ") who had lived on the northerly islands of Britain for almost a hundred years until the arrival of Norse pirates.[16]

Norsemen settled the islands c. 800, bringing Old West Norse, which evolved into the modern Faroese language. According to Icelandic sagas such as Færeyjar Saga, one of the best known men in the island was Tróndur í Gøtu, a descendant of Scandinavian chiefs who had settled in Dublin, Ireland. Tróndur led the battle against Sigmund Brestursson, the Norwegian monarchy and the Norwegian church.

The Norse and Norse–Gael settlers probably did not come directly from Scandinavia, but rather from Norse communities surrounding the Irish Sea, Northern Isles and Outer Hebrides of Scotland, including the Shetland and Orkney islands. A traditional name for the islands in Irish, Na Scigirí, possibly refers to the (Eyja-)Skeggjar "(Island-)Beards", a nickname given to island dwellers.

According to the Færeyinga saga, more emigrants left Norway who did not approve of the monarchy of Harald Fairhair (ruled c. 872 to 930). These people settled the Faroes around the end of the 9th century.[17] Early in the 11th century, Sigmundur Brestisson (961–1005) – whose clan had flourished in the southern islands before invaders from the northern islands almost exterminated it – escaped to Norway, he was sent back to take possession of the islands for Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway from 995 to 1000. Sigmundur introduced Christianity, forcing Tróndur í Gøtu to convert or face beheading and, though Sigmundur was subsequently murdered, Norwegian taxation was upheld. Norwegian control of the Faroes continued until 1814, although, when the Kingdom of Norway (872–1397) entered the Kalmar Union with Denmark, it gradually resulted in Danish control of the islands, the Reformation reached the Faroes in 1538. When the union between Denmark and Norway dissolved as a result of the Treaty of Kiel in 1814, Denmark retained possession of the Faroe Islands.

The islands cover an area of 1,399 square kilometres (540 sq. mi) and have small lakes and rivers, but no major ones. There are 1,117 kilometres (694 mi) of coastline.[18] The only significant uninhabited island is Lítla Dímun.

The climate is classed as subpolar oceanic climate according to the Köppen climate classification: Cfc, with areas having a tundra climate, especially in the mountains, although some coastal or low-lying areas can have very mild-winter versions of a tundra climate. The overall character of the islands' climate is influenced by the strong warming influence of the Atlantic Ocean, which produces the North Atlantic Current. This, together with the remoteness of any source of warm airflows, ensures that winters are mild (mean temperature 3.0 to 4.0 °C or 37 to 39 °F) while summers are cool (mean temperature 9.5 to 10.5 °C or 49 to 51 °F).

The islands are windy, cloudy and cool throughout the year with an average of 210 rainy or snowy days per year, the islands lie in the path of depressions moving northeast, making strong winds and heavy rain possible at all times of the year. Sunny days are rare and overcast days are common. Hurricane Faith struck the Faroe Islands on 5 September 1966 with sustained winds over 100 mph (160 km/h) and only then did the storm cease to be a tropical system.[20]

The climate varies greatly over small distances, due to the altitude, ocean currents, topography, and winds. Precipitation varies considerably throughout the archipelago; in some highland areas, snow cover can last for months with snowfalls possible for the greater part of the year (on the highest peaks, summer snowfall is by no means rare), while in some sheltered coastal locations, several years pass without any snowfall whatsoever. Tórshavn receives frosts more often than other areas just a short distance to the south. Snow is also seen at a much higher frequency than on outlying islands nearby, the area receives on average 49 frosts a year.[21]

The collection of meteorological data on the Faroe Islands began in 1867.[22] Winter recording began in 1891, and the warmest winter occurred in 2016-17 with an average temperature of 6.1 °C.[23]

A collection of Faroese marine algae resulting from a survey sponsored by NATO,[citation needed]the British Museum (Natural History) and the Carlsberg Foundation, is preserved in the Ulster Museum (catalogue numbers: F3195–F3307). It is one of ten exsiccatae sets.

Marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) is common in the Faroe Islands during May and June.

The natural vegetation of the Faroe Islands is dominated by arctic-alpine plants, wildflowers, grasses, moss and lichen. Most of the lowland area is grassland and some is heath, dominated by shrubby heathers, mainly Calluna vulgaris, among the herbaceous flora that occur in the Faroe Islands is the cosmopolitan marsh thistle, Cirsium palustre.[27]

Only a few species of wild land mammals are found in the Faroe Islands today, all introduced by humans. Three species are thriving on the islands today: mountain hare (Lepus timidus), brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) and the house mouse (Mus musculus). Apart from these, there once was a local domestic sheep breed, the Faroe sheep (depicted on the coat of arms), a variety of feral sheep survived on Lítla Dímun until the mid-19th century.[29]

Faroese sheep

Grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) are common around the shorelines.[citation needed] Several species of cetacea live in the waters around the Faroe Islands. Best known are the long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melaena), which are still hunted by the islanders in accordance with longstanding local tradition.[30]Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are regular visitors around the islands.

The Faroese government holds executive power in local government affairs, the head of the government is called the Løgmaður ("Law person") and serves as a premier. Any other member of the cabinet is called a landsstýrismaður ("national committee man") or landsstýriskvinna ("national committee woman"), the Faroese parliament – the Løgting ("Law assembly") – dates back to Viking times and is believed to be one of the oldest parliaments in the world. The parliament currently has 33 members.[31]

In contemporary times, elections are held at municipal, national (Løgting) and Danish (Folketing) levels, until 2007, there were seven electoral districts, each comprising a sýsla, while Streymoy was divided into a northern and southern part (Tórshavn region). However, on 25 October 2007, changes were made such that the entire country is one electoral district, giving each vote equal weight.

Traditionally, there are also the six sýslur (similar to the British "shire": Norðoyar, Eysturoy, Streymoy, Vágar, Sandoy and Suðuroy). Although today sýsla technically means "police district", the term is still commonly used to indicate a geographical region; in earlier times, each sýsla had its own assembly, the so-called várting ("spring assembly").

The Faroe Islands have been under Norwegian/Danish control since 1388, the 1814 Treaty of Kiel terminated the Danish-Norwegian union, and Norway came under the rule of the King of Sweden, while the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland remained Danish possessions. From ancient times the Faroe Islands had a parliament (Løgting) which was abolished in 1816, and the Faroe Islands were to be governed as an ordinary Danish amt (county), with the Amtmand as its head of government. In 1851, the Løgting was reinstated, but, until 1948, served mainly as an advisory body.

The islands are home to a notable independence movement that has seen an increase in popularity within recent decades, at the end of World War II, some of the population favoured independence from Denmark, and on 14 September 1946 an independence referendum was held on the question of secession. It was a consultative referendum; the parliament was not bound to follow the people's vote. This was the first time that the Faroese people had been asked whether they favoured independence or wanted to continue within the Danish kingdom.

The result of the vote was a narrow majority in favour of secession, but the coalition in parliament could not reach agreement on how this outcome should be interpreted and implemented; and because of these irresoluble differences, the coalition fell apart. A parliamentary election was held a few months later, in which the political parties that favoured staying in the Danish kingdom increased their share of the vote and formed a coalition. Based on this, they chose to reject secession. Instead, a compromise was made and the Folketing passed a home-rule law that went into effect in 1948, the Faroe Islands' status as a Danish amt was thereby brought to an end; the Faroe Islands were given a high degree of self-governance, supported by a financial subsidy from Denmark to recompense expenses the islands have on Danish services.

At present, the islanders are about evenly split between those favouring independence and those who prefer to continue as a part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Within both camps there is a wide range of opinions. Of those who favour independence, some are in favour of an immediate unilateral declaration of independence. Others see it as something to be attained gradually and with the full consent of the Danish government and the Danish nation; in the unionist camp there are also many who foresee and welcome a gradual increase in autonomy even while strong ties with Denmark are maintained.

As of 2011[update], a new draft Faroese constitution is being drawn up, however the draft has been declared by the Danish Prime Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, as incompatible with Denmark's constitution and if the Faroese political parties wish to continue with it then they must declare independence.[32]

As explicitly asserted by both treaties of the European Union, the Faroe Islands are not part of the European Union, the Faroes are not grouped with the EU when it comes to international trade; for instance, when the EU and Russia imposed reciprocal trade sanctions on each other over the War in Donbass in 2014, the Faroes began exporting significant amounts of fresh salmon to Russia.[33] Moreover, a protocol to the treaty of accession of Denmark to the European Communities stipulates that Danish nationals residing in the Faroe Islands are not considered Danish nationals within the meaning of the treaties. Hence, Danish people living in the Faroes are not citizens of the European Union (though other EU nationals living there remain EU citizens), the Faroes are not covered by the Schengen Agreement, but there are no border checks when travelling between the Faroes and any Schengen country (the Faroes have been part of the Nordic Passport Union since 1966, and since 2001 there have been no permanent border checks between the Nordic countries and the rest of the Schengen Area as part of the Schengen agreement).[34]

The Faroe Islands are not a fully independent country, but they do have political relations directly with other countries through agreement with Denmark, the Faroe Islands are a member of some international organisations as though they were an independent country.

The Faroe Islands are a member of several international sports federations like UEFA, FIFA in football[35] and FINA in swimming[36] and EHF in handball[37] and have their own national teams. The Faroe Islands have their own telephone country code, Internet country code top-level domain, banking code and postal country code.

The Faroe Islands make their own agreements with other countries regarding trade and commerce. When the EU embargo against Russia started in 2014, the Faroe Islands were not a part of the embargo because they are not a part of EU, and the islands had just themselves experienced a year of embargo from the EU including Denmark against the islands; the Faroese prime minister Kaj Leo Johannesen went to Moscow to negotiate the trade between the two countries.[7] The Faroese minister of fisheries negotiates with the EU and other countries regarding the rights to fish.[38]

The vast majority of the population are ethnic Faroese, of Norse and Celtic descent.[40] 300 women from the Philippines and Thailand make up the largest ethnic minority in the Faroes.[41]

Recent DNA analyses have revealed that Y chromosomes, tracing male descent, are 87% Scandinavian,[42] the studies show that mitochondrial DNA, tracing female descent, is 84% Celtic.[43] There is a gender deficit of about 2,000 women owing to migration.[44]

The 2011 census shows that of the approximately 48,600 inhabitants of the Faroe Islands (17,441 private households in 2011), 43,135 were born in the Faroe Islands, 3597 were born in the other two countries of the Kingdom of Denmark (Denmark or Greenland), and 1,614 were born outside the Kingdom of Denmark. People were also asked about their nationality, including Faroese. Children under 15 were not asked about their nationality. 97% said that they were ethnic Faroese, which means that many of those who were born in either Denmark or Greenland consider themselves as ethnic Faroese. The other 3% of those older than 15 said they were not Faroese: 515 were Danish, 433 were from other European countries, 147 came from Asia, 65 from Africa, 55 from the Americas, 23 from Russia,[47] the Faroe Islands have people from 77 different nationalities.

Faroese stamp by Anker Eli Petersen commemorating the arrival of Christianity in the islands

If the first inhabitants of the Faroe Islands were Irish monks, then they must have lived as a very small group of settlers. Later, when the Vikings colonised the islands, there was a considerable increase in the population. However, it never exceeded 5,000 until the 19th century, around 1349, about half the population perished in the Black Death plague.

Only with the rise of the deep-sea fishery (and thus independence from agriculture in the islands' harsh terrain) and with general progress in the health service was rapid population growth possible in the Faroes. Beginning in the 19th century, the population increased tenfold in 200 years.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Faroe Islands entered a deep economic crisis leading to heavy emigration; however, this trend reversed in subsequent years to a net immigration. This has been in the form of a population replacement as young Faroese women leave and are replaced with Asian/Pacific brides;[48] in 2011 there were 2,155 more men than women between the age of 0 to 59 in the Faroe Islands.[49]

The Faroese population is spread across most of the area; it was not until recent decades that significant urbanisation occurred. Industrialisation has been remarkably decentralised, and the area has therefore maintained quite a viable rural culture. Nevertheless, villages with poor harbour facilities have been the losers in the development from agriculture to fishing, and in the most peripheral agricultural areas, also known as Útoyggjar "Outer Islands", there are few young people; in recent decades, the village-based social structure has nevertheless been placed under pressure, giving way to a rise in interconnected "centres" that are better able to provide goods and services than the badly connected periphery. This means that shops and services are now relocating en masse from the villages into the centres, and slowly but steadily the Faroese population is concentrating in and around the centres.

In the 1990s, the government abandoned the old national policy of developing the villages (Bygdamenning), and instead began a process of regional development (Økismenning), the term "region" referred to the large islands of the Faroes. Nevertheless, the government was unable to press through the structural reform of merging small rural municipalities to create sustainable, decentralised entities that could drive forward regional development, as regional development has been difficult on the administrative level, the government has instead invested heavily in infrastructure, interconnecting the regions.

In general, it is becoming less valid to regard the Faroes as a society based on separate islands and regions, the huge investments in roads, bridges and sub-sea tunnels (see also Transport in the Faroe Islands) have bound the islands together, creating a coherent economic and cultural sphere that covers almost 90% of the population. From this perspective it is reasonable to regard the Faroes as a dispersed city or even to refer to it as the Faroese Network City.[citation needed]

Faroese is spoken in the entire area as a first language. It is difficult to say exactly how many people worldwide speak the Faroese language, because many ethnic Faroese live in Denmark, and few who are born there return to the Faroes with their parents or as adults.

The Faroese language is one of the smallest of the Germanic languages. Written Faroese (grammar and vocabulary) is most similar to Icelandic and to their ancestor Old Norse, though the spoken language is closer to Norwegian dialects of Western Norway. Although Faroese is the official language on the islands, Danish is taught in schools and can be used by the Faroese government in public relations.[50]

Faroese language policy provides for the active creation of new terms in Faroese suitable for modern life.

According to the Færeyinga saga, Sigmundur Brestisson brought Christianity to the islands in 999. However, archaeology at a site in Toftanes, Leirvík named Bønhústoftin (English: prayer-house ruin) and over a dozen slabs from Ólansgarður in the small island of Skúvoy which in the main display encircled linear and outline crosses, suggest that Celtic Christianity may have arrived at least 150 years earlier.[51] The Faroe Islands' Church Reformation was completed on 1 January 1540. According to official statistics from 2002, 84.1% of the Faroese population are members of the state church, the Church of the Faroe Islands (Fólkakirkjan), a form of Lutheranism. The Fólkakirkjan became an independent church in 2007; previously it had been a diocese within the Church of Denmark. Faroese members of the clergy who have had historical importance include Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb (1819–1909), Fríðrikur Petersen (1853–1917) and, perhaps most significantly, Jákup Dahl (1878–1944), who had a great influence in ensuring that the Faroese language was spoken in the church instead of Danish. Participation in churches is more prevalent among the Faroese population than among most other Scandinavians.

In the late 1820s, the Christian Evangelical religious movement, the Plymouth Brethren, was established in England; in 1865, a member of this movement, William Gibson Sloan, travelled to the Faroes from Shetland. At the turn of the 20th century, the Faroese Plymouth Brethren numbered thirty. Today, around 10% of the Faroese population are members of the Open Brethren community (Brøðrasamkoman). About 3% belong to the Charismatic Movement, which started somewhere [clarification needed] around the late 1920s, but had its zenith in the 1970s–1980s. There are several charismatic churches around the islands, the largest of which, called Keldan (The Spring), has about 200 to 300 members. About 2% belong to other Christian groups, the Adventists operate a private school in Tórshavn. Jehovah's Witnesses also have four congregations with a total of 121 members. The Roman Catholic congregation has about 170 members and falls under the jurisdiction of Denmark's Roman Catholic Diocese of Copenhagen. The municipality of Tórshavn has an old Franciscan school.

There are also around fifteen Bahá'ís who meet at four different places, the Ahmadiyyas established a community in the Faroe Islands in 2010. Unlike Denmark, Sweden and Iceland with Forn Siðr, the Faroes have no organised Heathen community.

In 1948, Victor Danielsen (Plymouth Brethren) completed the first Bible translation into Faroese from different modern languages. Jacob Dahl and Kristian Osvald Viderø (Fólkakirkjan) completed the second translation in 1961, the latter was translated from the original Biblical languages (Hebrew and Greek) into Faroese.

The levels of education in the Faroe Islands are primary, secondary and higher education. Most institutions are funded by the state; there are few private schools in the country. Education is compulsory for 9 years between the ages of 7 and 16.[53]

Compulsory education consists of seven years of primary education, and two years of lower secondary education; it is public, free of charge, provided by the respective municipalities, and is called the Fólkaskúli in Faroese. The Fólkaskúli also provides optional preschool education as well as the tenth year of education that is a prerequisite to get admitted to upper secondary education. Students that complete compulsory education are allowed to continue education in a vocational school, where they can have job-specific training and education, since the fishing industry is an important part of country's economy, maritime schools are an important part of Faroese education. Upon completion of the tenth year of Fólkaskúli, students can continue to upper secondary education which consists of several different types of schools. Higher education is offered at the University of the Faroe Islands; a part of Faroese youth moves abroad to pursue higher education, mainly in Denmark. Other forms of education comprise adult education and music schools, the structure of the Faroese educational system bears resemblances with its Danish counterpart.[53]

In the 12th century, education was provided by the Catholic Church in the Faroe Islands.[54] The Church of Denmark took over education after the Protestant Reformation.[55] Modern educational institutions started operating in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and developed throughout the twentieth century, the status of the Faroese language in education was a significant issue for decades, until it was accepted as a language of instruction in 1938.[56] Initially education was administered and regulated by Denmark;[56] in 1979 responsibilities on educational issues started transferring to the Faroese authorities, a procedure which was completed in 2002.[56]

The Ministry of Education, Research and Culture has the jurisdiction of educational responsibility in the Faroe Islands.[57] Since the Faroe Islands is a constituent country of the Danish Realm, education in the Faroe Islands is influenced and has similarities with the Danish educational system; there is an agreement on educational cooperation between the Faroe Islands and Denmark.[56][58][59] In 2012 the public spending on education was 8.1% of GDP.[60] The municipalities are responsible for the school buildings for children's education in Fólkaskúlin from age 1st grade to 9th or 10th grade (age 7 to 16);[61] in November 2013 1,615 people, or 6.8% of the total number of employees, were employed in the education sector.[60] Of the 31,270 people aged 25 and above 1,717 (5.5%) have gained at least a master's degrees or a Ph.D., 8,428 (27%) have gained a B.Sc. or a diploma, 11,706 (37.4%) have finished upper secondary education while 9,419 (30.1%) has only finished primary school and have no other education.[62] There is no data on literacy in the Faroe Islands, but the CIA Factbook states that it is probably as high as in Denmark proper, i.e. 99%.[63]

The majority of students in upper secondary schools are women, although men represent the majority in higher education institutions; in addition, most young Faroese people who relocate to other countries to study are women.[64] Out of 8,535 holders of bachelor degrees, 4,796 (56.2%) have had their education in the Faroe Islands, 2,724 (31.9%) in Denmark, 543 in both the Faroe Islands and Denmark, 94 (1.1%) in Norway, 80 in the United Kingdom and the rest in other countries.[65] Out of 1,719 holders of master's degrees or PhDs, 1,249 (72.7% have had their education in Denmark, 87 (5.1%) in the United Kingdom, 86 (5%) in both the Faroe Islands and Denmark, 64 (3.7%) in the Faroe Islands, 60 (3.5%) in Norway and the rest in other countries (mostly EU and Nordic).[65] Since there is no medical school in the Faroe Islands, all medical students have to study abroad; as of 2013[update], out of a total of 96 medical students, 76 studied in Denmark, 19 in Poland and 1 in Hungary.[66]

Economic troubles caused by a collapse of the Faroese fishing industry in the early 1990s brought high unemployment rates of 10 to 15% by the mid-1990s.[67] Unemployment decreased in the later 1990s, down to about 6% at the end of 1998.[67] By June 2008 unemployment had declined to 1.1%, before rising to 3.4% in early 2009.[67] In December 2014[68] the unemployment was 3.2%. Nevertheless, the almost total dependence on fishing and fish farming means that the economy remains vulnerable. One of the biggest private companies of the Faroe Islands is the salmon farming company Bakkafrost, which is the largest of the four salmon farming companies in the Faroe Islands[69] and the eighth biggest in the world.[70]

Klaksvík, on the island of Borðoy, is the Faroe Islands' second-largest town.

Petroleum found close to the Faroese area gives hope for deposits in the immediate area, which may provide a basis for sustained economic prosperity.[71]

13% of the Faroe Islands' national income comes as economic aid from Denmark.[72] This corresponds to roughly 5% of GDP.[73]

Since 2000, the government has fostered new information technology and business projects to attract new investment, the introduction of Burger King in Tórshavn was widely publicized as a sign of the globalization of Faroese culture. It remains to be seen whether these projects will succeed in broadening the islands' economic base, the islands have one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe, but this should not necessarily be taken as a sign of a recovering economy, as many young students move to Denmark and other countries after leaving high school. This leaves a largely middle-aged and elderly population that may lack the skills and knowledge to fill newly developed positions on the Faroes. Nonetheless, in 2008 the Faroes were able to make a $52 million loan to Iceland to help with that country's banking woes.[74]

On 5 August 2009, two opposition parties introduced a bill in the Løgting to adopt the euro as the national currency, pending a referendum.[75]

Because of the rocky terrain in the Faroe Islands, its road transport system was not[when?] as extensive as in other places of the world. This situation has now changed, and the infrastructure has been developed extensively, some 80 percent of the population of the islands is connected by tunnels through the mountains and between the islands, bridges and causeways that link the three largest islands and three other larger and smaller islands to the northeast together. While the other two large islands to the south of the main area, Sandoy and Suðuroy, are connected to the main area with ferries, the small islands Koltur and Stóra Dímun have no ferry connection, only helicopter service. Other small islands—Mykines in the west, Kalsoy, Svínoy and Fugloy in the north, Hestur west of Streymoy, and Nólsoy east of Tórshavn—have smaller ferries and some of these islands even have helicopter service; in February 2014 all the political parties of the Løgting agreed on making two subsea tunnels, one between Streymoy and Eysturoy (the Eysturoyartunnilin) and one between Streymoy and Sandoy (Sandoyartunnilin). The plan is that both tunnels should open in 2021 and they will not be private,[77] the work to dig the Eysturoy-tunnel started on 1 March 2016 above the village of Hvítanes near Tórshavn.[78]

The culture of the Faroe Islands has its roots in the Nordic culture, the Faroe Islands were long isolated from the main cultural phases and movements that swept across parts of Europe. This means that they have maintained a great part of their traditional culture, the language spoken is Faroese and it is one of three insular North Germanic languages descended from the Old Norse language spoken in Scandinavia in the Viking Age, the others being Icelandic and the extinct Norn, which is thought to have been mutually intelligible with Faroese. Until the 15th century, Faroese had a similar orthography to Icelandic and Norwegian, but after the Reformation in 1538, the ruling Norwegians outlawed its use in schools, churches and official documents, although a rich spoken tradition survived, for 300 years the language was not written down. This means that all poems and stories were handed down orally, these works were split into the following divisions: sagnir (historical), ævintýr (stories) and kvæði (ballads), often set to music and the medieval chain dance. These were eventually written down in the 19th century.

Faroese written literature has only really developed in the past 100–200 years, this is mainly because of the islands' isolation, and also because the Faroese language was not written down in a standardised format until 1890. The Danish language was also encouraged at the expense of Faroese. Nevertheless, the Faroes have produced several authors and poets. A rich centuries-old oral tradition of folk tales and Faroese folk songs accompanied the Faroese chain dance, the people learned these songs and stories by heart, and told or sung them to each other, teaching the younger generations too. This kind of literature was gathered in the 19th century and early 20th century, the Faroese folk songs, in Faroese called kvæði, are still in use although not so large-scale as earlier. Some of the Faroese folk songs have been used by the Faroese Viking metal band Týr, i.e., Ormurin Langi.[79]

The first Faroese novel, Bábelstornið by Regin í Líð, was published in 1909; the second novel was published 18 years later. In the period 1930 to 1940 a writer from the village Skálavík on Sandoy island, Heðin Brú, published three novels: Lognbrá (1930), Fastatøkur (1935) and Feðgar á ferð (English title: The old man and his sons) (1940). Feðgar á ferð has been translated into several other languages. Martin Joensen from Sandvík wrote about life on Faroese fishing vessels; he published the novels Fiskimenn (1946)[80] and Tað lýsir á landi (1952).

Women were not so visible in the early Faroese literature except for Helena Patursson (1864–1916), but in the last decades of the 20th century and in the beginning of the 21st century female writers like Ebba Hentze (born 1933) wrote children's books, short stories, etc. Guðrið Helmsdal published the first modernistic collection of poems, Lýtt lot, in 1963, which at the same time was the first collection of Faroese poems written by a woman.[86] Her daughter, Rakel Helmsdal (born 1966), is also a writer, best known for her children's books, for which she has won several prizes and nominations. Other female writers are the novelists Oddvør Johansen (born 1941), Bergtóra Hanusardóttir (born 1946) and novelist/children's books writers Marianna Debes Dahl (born 1947), and Sólrun Michelsen (born 1948). Other modern Faroese writers include Gunnar Hoydal (born 1941), Hanus Kamban (born 1942), Jógvan Isaksen (born 1950), Jóanes Nielsen (born 1953), Tóroddur Poulsen and Carl Jóhan Jensen (born 1957). Some of these writers have been nominated for the Nordic Council's Literature Prize two to six times, but have never won it. The only Faroese writer who writes in Faroese who has won the prize is the poet Rói Patursson (born 1947), who won the prize in 1986 for Líkasum.[87]

The Faroe Islands have an active music scene, with live music being a regular part of the Islands' life and many Faroese being proficient at a number of instruments. Multiple Danish Music Award winner Teitur Lassen calls the Faroes home and is arguably the Islands' most internationally well-known musical export.

The Islands have their own orchestra (the classical ensemble Aldubáran) and many different choirs; the best-known of these is Havnarkórið. The best-known local Faroese composers are Sunleif Rasmussen and Kristian Blak, who is also head of the record company Tutl, the first Faroese opera was by Sunleif Rasmussen. It is entitled Í Óðamansgarði (The Madman's Garden) and was premiered on 12 October 2006 at the Nordic House, the opera is based on a short story by the writer William Heinesen.

The festival of contemporary and classical music, Summartónar, is held each summer, the G! Festival in Norðragøta in July and Summarfestivalurin in Klaksvík in August are both large, open-air music festivals for popular music with both local and international musicians participating. The world renowned Zappa Jazz Festival will be held August 2016.

The Nordic House in the Faroe Islands (Faroese: Norðurlandahúsið) is the most important cultural institution in the Faroes. Its aim is to support and promote Scandinavian and Faroese culture, locally and in the Nordic region. Erlendur Patursson (1913–86), Faroese member of the Nordic Council, raised the idea of a Nordic cultural house in the Faroe Islands. A Nordic competition for architects was held in 1977, in which 158 architects participated. Winners were Ola Steen from Norway and Kolbrún Ragnarsdóttir from Iceland. By staying true to folklore, the architects built the Nordic House to resemble an enchanted hill of elves, the house opened in Tórshavn in 1983. The Nordic House is a cultural organization under the Nordic Council, the Nordic House is run by a steering committee of eight, of whom three are Faroese and five from other Nordic countries. There is also a local advisory body of fifteen members, representing Faroese cultural organizations, the House is managed by a director appointed by the steering committee for a four-year term.

Traditional Faroese food is mainly based on meat, seafood and potatoes and uses few fresh vegetables. Mutton of the Faroe sheep is the basis of many meals, and one of the most popular treats is skerpikjøt, well aged, wind-dried mutton, which is quite chewy, the drying shed, known as a hjallur, is a standard feature in many Faroese homes, particularly in the small towns and villages. Other traditional foods are ræst kjøt (semi-dried mutton) and ræstur fiskur, matured fish. Another Faroese specialty is tvøst og spik, pilot whale meat and blubber. (A parallel meat/fat dish made with offal is garnatálg.) Meat and blubber from a pilot whale means food for a long time. Fresh fish also features strongly in the traditional local diet, as do seabirds, such as Faroese puffins, and their eggs. Dried fish is also commonly eaten.

There are two breweries in the Faroe Islands, the first brewery is called Föroya Bjór and has produced beer since 1888 with exports mainly to Iceland and Denmark. The second brewery is called Okkara Bryggjarí and was founded in 2010. A local specialty is fredrikk, a special brew made in Nólsoy. Production of hard alcohol such as snaps is forbidden in the Faroe Islands, hence the Faroese akvavit is produced abroad.

Since the friendly British occupation, the Faroese have been fond of British food, in particular fish and chips and British-style chocolate such as Cadbury Dairy Milk, which is found in many of the island's shops, whereas in Denmark this is scarce.

There are records of drive hunts in the Faroe Islands dating from 1584.[89]Whaling in the Faroe Islands is regulated by Faroese authorities but not by the International Whaling Commission as there are disagreements about the Commission's legal authority to regulate cetacean hunts. Hundreds of long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melaena) could be killed in a year, mainly during the summer, the hunts, called grindadráp in Faroese, are non-commercial and are organized on a community level; anyone can participate. When a whale pod by chance is spotted near land the participating hunters first surround the pilot whales with a wide semicircle of boats and then slowly and quietly begin to drive the whales towards the chosen authorised bay.[90] When a pod of whales has been stranded the killing is begun. Faroese animal welfare legislation, which also applies to whaling, requires that animals are killed as quickly and with as little suffering as possible. A regulation spinal lance is used to sever the spinal cord, which also severs the major blood supply to the brain, ensuring both loss of consciousness and death within seconds, the spinal lance has been introduced as preferred standard equipment for killing pilot whales and has been shown to reduce killing time to 1–2 seconds.[90]

This "grindadráp" is legal and provides food for many people in the Faroe Islands.[91][92][93] However, a study has found whale meat and blubber to currently be contaminated with mercury and not recommended for human consumption, as too much may cause such adverse health effects as birth defects of the nervous system, high blood pressure, damaged immune system, increased risk for developing Parkinson's disease, hypertension, arteriosclerosis, and Diabetes mellitus type 2:

Therefore we recommend that adults eat no more than one to two meals a month. Women who plan to become pregnant within three months, pregnant women, and nursing women should abstain from eating pilot whale meat. Pilot whale liver and kidneys should not be eaten at all.[94]

Most Faroese Islanders consider the hunt an important part of their culture and history. Animal rights groups, such as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, criticize it as being cruel and unnecessary, since it in their point of view is no longer necessary as a food source for the Faroese people, while the hunters claim in return that most journalists do not exhibit sufficient knowledge of the catch methods or its economic significance.

The sustainability of the Faroese pilot whale hunt has been discussed, but with a long-term average catch of around 800 pilot whales on the Faroe Islands a year the hunt is not considered to have a significant impact on the pilot whale population. There are an estimated 128,000 pilot whales in the Northeast Atlantic, and Faroese whaling is therefore considered a sustainable catch by the Faroese government.[95] Annual records of whale drives and strandings of pilot whales and other small cetaceans provide over 400 years of documentation, including statistics, and represents one of the most comprehensive historical records of wildlife utilization anywhere in the world.[90]

The Faroe Islands have competed in every biennial Island Games since they were established in 1985, the games were hosted by the islands in 1989 and Faroes won the Island Games in 2009.

Pál Joensen, Faroese swimmer

Football is by far the biggest sports activity on the islands, with 7,000 registered players out of the whole population of 50,000. Ten football teams contest the Faroe Islands Premier League, currently ranked 51st by UEFA's League coefficient, the Faroe Islands are a full member of UEFA and the Faroe Islands national football team competes in the UEFA European Football Championship qualifiers. The country is also a full member of FIFA and therefore the Faroe Islands football team also competes in the FIFA World Cup qualifiers, the country won its first ever competitive match when the team defeated Austria 1–0 in a UEFA Euro 1992 qualifying. The nation's biggest success in football came in 2014 after defeating Greece 1–0, a result that was considered "the biggest shock of all time" in football[96] thanks to a 169-place distance between the teams in the FIFA World Rankings when the match was played, the team climbed 82 places to 105 on the FIFA ranking after the 1–0 win against Greece.[97] The team went on to defeat Greece again on 13 June 2015 by a score of 2–1, on 9 July 2015 the national football team of the Faroes climbed another 28 places up on the FIFA ranking.[98]

The Faroe Islands are a full member of FINA and compete under their own flag at World Championships, European Championships and World Cup events, the Faroese swimmer Pál Joensen (born 1990) won a bronze medal at the 2012 FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m)[99] and four silver medals at the European Championships (2010, 2013 and 2014),[100] all medals won in the men's longest and second longest distance the 1500 and 800 metre freestyle, short and long course. The Faroe Islands compete in the Paralympics and have won several gold, silver and bronze medals there.

Two Faroese athletes have competed at the Olympics, but under the Danish flag, since the Olympic Committee does not allow the Faroe Islands to compete under its own flag, the two Faroese who have competed are the swimmer Pál Joensen in 2012 and the rower Katrin Olsen. She competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in double sculler light weight together with Juliane Rasmussen. Another Faroese rower, who is a member of the Danish National rowing team is Sverri Sandberg Nielsen, who currently competes in single sculler, heavy weight, he has also competed in double sculler, he is the current Danish record holder in the men's indoor rowing, heavy weight, he broke a nine-year-old record in January 2015[101] and improved it in January 2016.[102] He has also competed at the 2015 World Rowing Championships making it to the semifinal; he competed at the 2015 World Rowing Championship under-23 and made it to the final where his final result was number four.[103]

The Faroe Islands applied to the IOC for full Faroese membership in 1984, but as of 2015[update] the Faroe Islands are still not a member of the IOC, the Faroes have competed under their own flag at the European Junior Championship for several years, but in 2015 the championship was held at the 1st European Games in Baku, and the Faroe Islands were not allowed to compete under the Faroese flag, they were however allowed to compete under the FINA flag. The Faroese prime minister Kaj Leo Holm Johannesen had a meeting with the IOC president Thomas Bach in Lausanne on 21 May 2015 to discuss Faroese membership in the IOC.[104][105]

During 2014 Faroe Islands was given the opportunity to compete in Electronic Sports European Championship (ESEC) in E-Sports.[107] 5 players, all of Faroese nationality, faced Slovenia in the first round, eventually getting knocked out with a 0-2 score.[108]

At the 2016 Baku Chess Olympiad, the Faroe Islands got their first chess grandmaster. Helgi Ziska won his third GM norm and thus, won the title of chess grandmaster.[109]

Faroese handicrafts are mainly based on materials available to local villages—mainly wool. Garments include jumpers, scarves, and gloves. Faroese jumpers have distinct Nordic patterns; each village has some regional variations handed down from mother to daughter. There has recently been a strong revival of interest in Faroese knitting, with young people knitting and wearing updated versions of old patterns emphasized by strong colours and bold patterns, this appears to be a reaction to the loss of traditional lifestyles, and as a way to maintain and assert cultural tradition in a rapidly-changing society. Many young people study and move abroad, and this helps them maintain cultural links with their specific Faroese heritage.

There has also been a great interest in Faroese sweaters[110] from the TV series The Killing, where the popular main actress (Detective Inspector Sarah Lund, played by Sofie Gråbøl) wears Faroese sweaters. This has greatly increased the profile of the Faroe Islands,[citation needed] particularly within the fashion industry, as Faroese sweaters are sold in places such as Harrods.

Lace knitting is a traditional handicraft. The most distinctive trait of Faroese lace shawls is the centre-back gusset shaping, each shawl consists of two triangular side panels, a trapezoid-shaped back gusset, an edge treatment, and usually shoulder shaping. These are worn by all generations of women, particularly as part of the traditional Faroese costume as an overgarment.

Faroese folk dancers, some of them in national costume

The traditional Faroese national dress is also a local handicraft that people spend a lot of time, money, and effort to assemble, it is worn at weddings and traditional dancing events, and on feast days. The cultural significance of the garment should not be underestimated, both as an expression of local and national identity and a passing on and reinforcing of traditional skills that bind local communities together.

A young Faroese person is normally handed down a set of children's Faroese clothes that have passed from generation to generation. Children are confirmed at age 14, and normally start to collect the pieces to make an adult outfit, which is considered as a rite of passage. Traditionally the aim would have been to complete the outfit by the time a young person was ready to marry and wear the clothes at the ceremony—though it is mainly only men who do this now.

Each piece is intricately hand-knitted, dyed, woven, or embroidered to the specifications of the wearer, for example, the man's waistcoat is put together by hand in bright blue, red, or black fine wool. The front is then intricately embroidered with colourful silk threads, often by a female relative, the motifs are often local Faroese flowers or herbs. After this, a row of Faroese-made solid silver buttons are sewn on the outfit.

Women wear embroidered silk, cotton, or wool shawls and pinafores that can take months to weave or embroider with local flora and fauna, they are also adorned with a handwoven black and red ankle-length skirt, knitted black and red jumper, a velvet belt, and black 18th century style shoes with silver buckles. The outfit is held together by a row of solid silver buttons, silver chains and locally-made silver brooches and belt buckles, often fashioned with Viking style motifs.

Both men's and women's national dress are extremely costly and can take many years to assemble. Women in the family often work together to assemble the outfits, including knitting the close-fitting jumpers, weaving and embroidering, sewing and assembling the national dress.

This tradition binds together families, passes on traditional crafts, and reinforces the Faroese culture of traditional village life in the context of a modern society.

Ólavsøka is on 29 July; it commemorates the death of Saint Olaf. The celebrations are held in Tórshavn, starting on the evening of the 28th and continuing until the 31st. 28 July is a half working day for the members of some of the labour unions, while Ólavsøkudagur (St Olaf's Day) on 29 July is a full holiday for most but not all union members.[111][112]

The official celebration starts on the 29th, with the opening of the Faroese Parliament, a custom that dates back 900 years,[113] this begins with a service held in Tórshavn Cathedral; all members of parliament as well as civil and church officials walk to the cathedral in a procession. All of the parish ministers take turns giving the sermon, after the service, the procession returns to the parliament for the opening ceremony.

Other celebrations are marked by different kinds of sports competitions, the rowing competition (in Tórshavn Harbour) being the most popular, art exhibitions, pop concerts, and the famous Faroese dance in Sjónleikarhúsið and on Vaglið outdoor singing on 29 July (continuing after midnight on 30 July), the celebrations have many facets, and only a few are mentioned here.

Many people also mark the occasion by wearing the national Faroese dress.

1.
Fair Isle
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Fair Isle is an island in northern Scotland, belonging to the Shetland island group, lying around halfway between mainland Shetland and the Orkney islands. It is known for its observatory and a traditional style of knitting. Fair Isle is the most remote inhabited island in the United Kingdom, Fair Isle is 4.8 km long and 2.4 km wide. It has an area of 3 sq mi, making it the tenth largest of the Shetland Islands and it gives its name to one of the British Sea Areas. The majority of the live in the crofts on the southern half of the island. The western coast consists of cliffs of up to 200 m in height, with Ward Hill at 217 m being the elevation of the island. There are two known Iron Age sites – a promontory fort at Landberg and the foundations of a house underlying an early Christian settlement at Kirkigeo, most of the place-names date from after the 9th-century Norse settlement of the Northern Isles. By that time the lands had clearly been in use for centuries. On 20 August 1588 the flagship of the Spanish Armada, El Gran Grifón, was shipwrecked in the cove of Stroms Heelor, the wreck was discovered in 1970. The large Canadian sailing ship Black Watch was wrecked on Fair Isle in 1877, Fair Isle was bought by the National Trust for Scotland in 1954 from George Waterston, the founder of the bird observatory. The population has been decreasing steadily from about 400 in 1900, there are currently around 55 permanent residents on the island, the majority of whom are crofters who work the land. The island has 14 scheduled monuments, ranging from the earliest signs of activity to the remains of a Second World War radar station. The two automated lighthouses are protected as listed buildings, the island houses a series of high-technology relay stations carrying vital TV, radio, telephone and military communication links between Shetland, Orkney and the Scottish mainland. In this respect it continues its role as a signal-station, linking the mainland. In 1976, when television relay equipment was updated to permit colour broadcasts to Shetland, many television signals are relayed from Orkney to Shetland via Orkneys Keelylang Hill transmitter station. Over the centuries the island has changed many times. Rent was usually paid to landlords in butter, cloth. Fishing has always been an important industry for the island, in 1702, the Dutch, who were interested in Shetlands herring fisheries, fought a naval battle against French warships just off the island

2.
Faroese language
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It is one of five languages descended from Old West Norse spoken in the Middle Ages, the others being Norwegian, Icelandic, and the extinct Norn and Greenlandic Norse. Around 900, the language spoken in the Faroes was Old Norse, however, many of the settlers were not from Scandinavia, but descendants of Norse settlers in the Irish Sea region. In addition, women from Norse Ireland, Orkney, or Shetland often married native Scandinavian men before settling in the Faroe Islands, as a result, the Irish language has had some influence on both Faroese and Icelandic. There is some evidence of Irish language place names in the Faroes, for example. Until the 15th century Faroese had a similar to Icelandic and Norwegian. The islanders continued to use the language in ballads, folktales and this maintained a rich spoken tradition, but for 300 years the language was not used in written form. This changed when Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb and the Icelandic grammarian and politician Jón Sigurðsson published a standard for Modern Faroese in 1854. They set a standard for the orthography of the language, based on its Old Norse roots and this had the advantage of being etymologically clear, as well as keeping the kinship with the Icelandic written language. The actual pronunciation, however, often differs from the written rendering, the letter ð, for example, has no specific phoneme attached to it. Jakob Jakobsen devised a system of orthography, based on his wish for a phonetic spelling. In 1937, Faroese replaced Danish as the school language, in 1938 as the church language. However, Faroese did not become the language of media. Today Danish is considered a language, although around 5% of residents on the Faroes learn it as a first language. Old Faroese is a form of Old Norse spoken in medieval times in the Faroe Islands, the most crucial aspects of the development of Faroese are diphthongisation and palatalisation. There is not enough available to establish an accurate chronology of Faroese. Iotacism may be connected with the palatalisation of k, g and sk before Old Norse e, i, y, ø, au > /kj, ɡj, skj/ > /cç, ɟʝ, ɕcç/ > /tʃʰ, tʃ. Before the palatalisation é and ǽ merged as /ɛː/ and approximately in the same period epenthesis u is inserted into word-final /Cr/, the Great Quantity Shift operated in the 15th/16th centuries. In the case of skerping, it took place after iotacism, the shift of hv to /kw/, the deletion of /h/ in word-initial /h/–sonorant clusters, and the dissolution of þ appeared before the end of the 13th century

Faroese language
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The Sheep letter (Faroese: Seyðabrævið) is the oldest surviving document of the Faroe Islands. Written in 1298 in Old Norse, it contains some words and expressions believed to be especially Faroese.
Faroese language
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Old West Norse dialect
Faroese language
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The Famjin Stone, a Faroese runestone

3.
Coat of arms of Faroe Islands
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The coat of arms of the Faroe Islands first appears on one of the medieval chairs in Kirkjubøur from around the 15th century. It depicts a silver ram passant with golden hooves and horns on an azure shield, later uses show a ram in a seal used by the Løgrættumenn, members of the Old Faroese law Court, the Løgting. In 1948, the coat of arms came into use again after the Home Rule Act came into force, not by the Løgting, the old title Løgmaður had been reestablished, but this time as the leader of the government, and the coat of arms followed him. On 1 April 2004, the Prime Ministers Office announced that from then on that it would use a new version of the coat of arms and this new interpretation was based on the original found depicted on the chairs from Kirkjubøur. The colours were inspired from the Faroese flag Merkið, and golden yellow was added, the new coat of arms depicts a ram on a blue shield ready to defend. It can be used by Cabinet Ministries and by official Faroese representatives, though some still use the old symbol

Coat of arms of Faroe Islands
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Coat of arms at the Faroese Embassy in Copenhagen
Coat of arms of Faroe Islands
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Modern coat of arms, depicting a Veðrur

4.
Greenland
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Greenland is an autonomous constituent country within the Danish Realm between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for more than a millennium. The majority of its residents are Inuit, whose ancestors began migrating from the Canadian mainland in the 13th century, Greenland is the worlds largest island. Three-quarters of Greenland is covered by the permanent ice sheet outside Antarctica. With a population of about 56,480, it is the least densely populated country in the world, the Arctic Umiaq Line ferry acts as a lifeline for western Greenland, connecting the various cities and settlements. Greenland has been inhabited off and on for at least the last 4,500 years by Arctic peoples whose forebears migrated there from what is now Canada, Norsemen settled the uninhabited southern part of Greenland beginning in the 10th century, and Inuit peoples arrived in the 13th century. The Norse colonies disappeared in the late 15th century, soon after their demise, beginning in 1499, the Portuguese briefly explored and claimed the island, naming it Terra do Lavrador. In the early 18th century, Scandinavian explorers reached Greenland again, to strengthen trading and power, Denmark-Norway affirmed sovereignty over the island. Greenland was settled by Vikings more than a thousand years ago, Vikings set sail from Greenland and Iceland, discovering North America nearly 500 years before Columbus reached Caribbean islands. Though under continuous influence of Norway and Norwegians, Greenland was not formally under the Norwegian crown until 1262, the Kingdom of Norway was extensive and a military power until the mid-14th century. Thus, the two kingdoms resources were directed at creating Copenhagen, Norway became the weaker part and lost sovereignty over Greenland in 1814 when the union was dissolved. Greenland became a Danish colony in 1814, and was made a part of the Danish Realm in 1953 under the Constitution of Denmark, in 1973, Greenland joined the European Economic Community with Denmark. However, in a referendum in 1982, a majority of the population voted for Greenland to withdraw from the EEC which was effected in 1985, Greenland contains the worlds largest and most northernly national park, Northeast Greenland National Park. Greenland is divided into four municipalities - Sermersooq, Kujalleq, Qaasuitsup and it also retains control of monetary policy, providing an initial annual subsidy of DKK3.4 billion, which is planned to diminish gradually over time. Greenland expects to grow its economy based on increased income from the extraction of natural resources, the capital, Nuuk, held the 2016 Arctic Winter Games. At 70%, Greenland has one of the highest shares of renewable energy in the world, the early Viking settlers named the island as Greenland. In the Icelandic sagas, the Norwegian-born Icelander Erik the Red was said to be exiled from Iceland for manslaughter, along with his extended family and his thralls, he set out in ships to explore an icy land known to lie to the northwest. After finding an area and settling there, he named it Grœnland

5.
Denmark
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Denmark, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, is a Scandinavian country in Europe and a sovereign state. The southernmost and smallest of the Nordic countries, it is south-west of Sweden and south of Norway, Denmark also comprises two autonomous constituent countries in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Denmark has an area of 42,924 square kilometres. The country consists of a peninsula, Jutland, and an archipelago of 443 named islands, with the largest being Zealand, the islands are characterised by flat, arable land and sandy coasts, low elevation and a temperate climate. The unified kingdom of Denmark emerged in the 10th century as a proficient seafaring nation in the struggle for control of the Baltic Sea, Denmark, Sweden and Norway were ruled together under the Kalmar Union, established in 1397 and ending with Swedish secession in 1523. Denmark and Norway remained under the monarch until outside forces dissolved the union in 1814. The union with Norway made it possible for Denmark to inherit the Faroe Islands, Iceland, beginning in the 17th century, there were several cessions of territory to Sweden. In the 19th century there was a surge of nationalist movements, Denmark remained neutral during World War I. In April 1940, a German invasion saw brief military skirmishes while the Danish resistance movement was active from 1943 until the German surrender in May 1945, the Constitution of Denmark was signed on 5 June 1849, ending the absolute monarchy which had begun in 1660. It establishes a constitutional monarchy organised as a parliamentary democracy, the government and national parliament are seated in Copenhagen, the nations capital, largest city and main commercial centre. Denmark exercises hegemonic influence in the Danish Realm, devolving powers to handle internal affairs, Home rule was established in the Faroe Islands in 1948, in Greenland home rule was established in 1979 and further autonomy in 2009. Denmark became a member of the European Economic Community in 1973, maintaining certain opt-outs, it retains its own currency, the krone. It is among the members of NATO, the Nordic Council, the OECD, OSCE. The etymology of the word Denmark, and especially the relationship between Danes and Denmark and the unifying of Denmark as a kingdom, is a subject which attracts debate. This is centred primarily on the prefix Dan and whether it refers to the Dani or a historical person Dan and the exact meaning of the -mark ending. Most handbooks derive the first part of the word, and the name of the people, from a word meaning land, related to German Tenne threshing floor. The -mark is believed to mean woodland or borderland, with references to the border forests in south Schleswig. The first recorded use of the word Danmark within Denmark itself is found on the two Jelling stones, which are believed to have been erected by Gorm the Old and Harald Bluetooth

6.
Demonym
–
A demonym is a word that identifies residents or natives of a particular place, which is derived from the name of that particular place. It is a neologism, previously gentilic was recorded in English dictionaries, e. g. the Oxford English Dictionary, thus a Thai may be any resident or citizen of Thailand, of any ethnic group, or more narrowly a member of the Thai people. Conversely, some groups of people may be associated with multiple demonyms, for example, a native of the United Kingdom may be called a British person, a Brit, or a Briton. In some languages, when a parallel demonym does not exist, in English, demonyms are capitalized and are often the same as the adjectival form of the place, e. g. Egyptian, Japanese, or Greek. Significant exceptions exist, for instance the adjectival form of Spain is Spanish, English widely includes country-level demonyms such as Ethiopian or Guatemalan and more local demonyms such as Seoulite, Wisconsinite, Chicagoan, Michigander, Fluminense, and Paulista. Some places lack a commonly used and accepted demonym and this poses a particular challenge to those toponymists who research demonyms. The word gentilic comes from the Latin gentilis and the English suffix -ic, the word demonym was derived from the Greek word meaning populace with the suffix for name. National Geographic attributes the term demonym to Merriam-Webster editor Paul Dickson in a recent work from 1990 and it was subsequently popularized in this sense in 1997 by Dickson in his book Labels for Locals. However, in What Do You Call a Person From, a Dictionary of Resident Names attributed the term to George H. Scheetz, in his Names Names, A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon, which is apparently where the term first appears. Several linguistic elements are used to create demonyms in the English language, the most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location name, slightly modified in some instances. Cairo → Cairene Cyrenaica → Cyrene Damascus → Damascene Greece → Greek Nazareth → Nazarene Slovenia → Slovene Often used for Middle Eastern locations and European locations. Kingston-upon-Hull → Hullensian Leeds → Leodensian Spain → Spaniard Savoy → Savoyard -ese is usually considered proper only as an adjective, thus, a Chinese person is used rather than a Chinese. Monaco → Monégasque Menton → Mentonasque Basque Country → Basque Often used for French locations, mostly they are from Africa and the Pacific, and are not generally known or used outside the country concerned. In much of East Africa, a person of an ethnic group will be denoted by a prefix. For example, a person of the Luba people would be a Muluba, the plural form Baluba, similar patterns with minor variations in the prefixes exist throughout on a tribal level. And Fijians who are indigenous Fijians are known as Kaiviti and these demonyms are usually more informal and colloquial. In the United States such informal demonyms frequently become associated with mascots of the sports teams of the state university system. In other countries the origins are often disputed and these will typically be formed using the standard models above

Demonym
–
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary has not adopted the term "demonyn" for these adjectives and nouns

7.
Danish Realm
–
The term Danish Realm refers to the relationship between Denmark proper, the Faroe Islands and Greenland—three countries constituting the Kingdom of Denmark. The legal nature of the Kingdom of Denmark is fundamentally one of a sovereign state. The Faroe Islands and Greenland have been part of the Crown of Denmark since 1397 when the Kalmar Union was ratified, legal matters in The Danish Realm are subject to the Danish Constitution. Beginning in 1953, state law issues within The Danish Realm has been governed by The Unity of the Realm, a less formal name for The Unity of the Realm is the Commonwealth of the Realm. In 1978, The Unity of The Realm was for the first time referred to as rigsfællesskabet. The name caught on and since the 1990s, both The Unity of The Realm and The Danish Realm itself has increasingly been referred to as simply rigsfællesskabet in daily parlance. The Danish Constitution stipulates that the foreign and security interests for all parts of the Danish Realm are the responsibility of the Danish government, the Faroes received home rule in 1948 and Greenland did so in 1979. In 2005, the Faroes received a self-government arrangement, and in 2009 Greenland received self rule, the Danish Realms unique state of internal affairs is acted out in the principle of The Unity of the Realm. This principle is derived from Article 1 of the Danish Constitution which specifies that constitutional law applies equally to all areas of the Danish Realm, the Constitutional Act specifies that sovereignty is to continue to be exclusively with the authorities of the Realm. The language of Denmark is Danish, and the Danish state authorities are based in Denmark, the Kingdom of Denmarks parliament, with its 179 members, is located in the capital, Copenhagen. Two of the members are elected in each of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Government ministries are located in Copenhagen, as is the highest court, in principle, the Danish Realm constitutes a unified sovereign state, with equal status between its constituent parts. Devolution differs from federalism in that the powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government. The Self-Government Arrangements devolves political competence and responsibility from the Danish political authorities to the Faroese, the Faroese and Greenlandic authorities administer the tasks taken over from the state, enact legislation in these specific fields and have the economic responsibility for solving these tasks. The Danish government provides a grant to the Faroese and the Greenlandic authorities to cover the costs of these devolved areas. The 1948 Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands sets out the terms of Faroese home rule, the Act states. the Faroe Islands shall constitute a self-governing community within the State of Denmark. It establishes the government of the Faroe Islands and the Faroese parliament. The Faroe Islands were previously administered as a Danish county, the Home Rule Act abolished the post of Amtmand and these powers were expanded in a 2005 Act, which named the Faroese home government as an equal partner with the Danish government

Danish Realm
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Tinganes, in the capital Tórshavn, is the location of the Faroese Home Government.
Danish Realm
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The Unity of the Realm on the Globe. (dark green)

8.
Parliamentary system
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In a parliamentary system, the head of state is usually a different person from the head of government. Since ancient times, when societies were tribal, there were councils or a headman whose decisions were assessed by village elders, eventually these councils have slowly evolved into the modern Parliamentary system. The first parliaments date back to Europe in the Middle Ages, for example in 1188 Alfonso IX, the modern concept of parliamentary government emerged in the Kingdom of Great Britain and its contemporary, the Parliamentary System in Sweden. In England, Simon de Montfort is remembered as one of the fathers of representative government for holding two famous parliaments, the first, in 1258, stripped the King of unlimited authority and the second, in 1265, included ordinary citizens from the towns. Later, in the 17th century, the Parliament of England pioneered some of the ideas and systems of liberal democracy culminating in the Glorious Revolution, in the Kingdom of Great Britain, the monarch, in theory, chaired cabinet and chose ministers. In practice, King George Is inability to speak English led the responsibility for chairing cabinet to go to the minister, literally the prime or first minister. By the nineteenth century, the Great Reform Act of 1832 led to parliamentary dominance, with its choice invariably deciding who was prime minister, hence the use of phrases like Her Majestys government or His Excellencys government. Nineteenth century urbanisation, industrial revolution and, modernism had already fueled the political struggle for democracy. In the radicalised times at the end of World War I, a parliamentary system may be either bicameral, with two chambers of parliament or unicameral, with just one parliamentary chamber. Scholars of democracy such as Arend Lijphart distinguish two types of parliamentary democracies, the Westminster and Consensus systems, the Westminster system is usually found in the Commonwealth of Nations and countries which were influenced by the British political tradition. These parliaments tend to have a more style of debate. The Australian House of Representatives is elected using instant-runoff voting, while the Senate is elected using proportional representation through single transferable vote, regardless of which system is used, the voting systems tend to allow the voter to vote for a named candidate rather than a closed list. The Western European parliamentary model tends to have a more consensual debating system, Consensus systems have more of a tendency to use proportional representation with open party lists than the Westminster Model legislatures. The committees of these Parliaments tend to be more important than the plenary chamber, some West European countries parliaments implement the principle of dualism as a form of separation of powers. In countries using this system, Members of Parliament have to resign their place in Parliament upon being appointed minister, ministers in those countries usually actively participate in parliamentary debates, but are not entitled to vote. Some countries such as India also require the prime minister to be a member of the legislature, the head of state appoints a prime minister who will likely have majority support in parliament. The head of state appoints a minister who must gain a vote of confidence within a set time. The head of state appoints the leader of the party holding a plurality of seats in parliament as prime minister

9.
Constitutional monarchy
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A constitutional monarchy is a form of monarchy in which the sovereign exercises their authorities in accordance with a written or unwritten constitution. A constitutional monarchy may refer to a system in which the acts as a non-party political head of state under the constitution. Political scientist Vernon Bogdanor, paraphrasing Thomas Macaulay, has defined a constitutional monarch as a sovereign who reigns, in addition to acting as a visible symbol of national unity, a constitutional monarch may hold formal powers such as dissolving parliament or giving royal assent to legislation. Many constitutional monarchies still retain significant authorities or political influence however, such as through certain reserve powers, the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms are all constitutional monarchies in the Westminster tradition of constitutional governance. Three states – Malaysia, Cambodia and the Holy See – are elective monarchies, the oldest constitutional monarchy dating back to ancient times was that of the Hittites. These were scattered noble families that worked as representatives of their subjects in an adjutant or subaltern federal-type landscape, the most recent country to move from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy was Bhutan, between 2007 and 2008. At the same time, in Scotland the Convention of Estates enacted the Claim of Right Act 1689, although Queen Anne was the last monarch to veto an Act of Parliament when in 1707 she blocked the Scottish Militia Bill, Hanoverian monarchs continued to selectively dictate government policies. For instance George III constantly blocked Catholic Emancipation, eventually precipitating the resignation of William Pitt the Younger as Prime Minister in 1801, Queen Victoria was the last monarch to exercise real personal power but this diminished over the course of her reign. In 1839 she became the last sovereign to keep a Prime Minister in power against the will of Parliament when the Bedchamber crisis resulted in the retention of Lord Melbournes administration, today, the role of the British monarch is by convention effectively ceremonial. No person may accept significant public office without swearing an oath of allegiance to the Queen, with few exceptions, the monarch is bound by constitutional convention to act on the advice of the Government. Constitutional monarchy also occurred briefly in the years of the French Revolution. As originally conceived, a monarch was head of the executive branch and quite a powerful figure even though his or her power was limited by the constitution. In many cases the monarchs, while still at the top of the political and social hierarchy, were given the status of servants of the people to reflect the new. In the course of Frances July Monarchy, Louis-Philippe I was styled King of the French rather than King of France, following the Unification of Germany, Otto von Bismarck rejected the British model. However this model of constitutional monarchy was discredited and abolished following Germanys defeat in the First World War. Later, Fascist Italy could also be considered as a constitutional monarchy and this eventually discredited the Italian monarchy and led to its abolition in 1946. After the Second World War, surviving European monarchies almost invariably adopted some variant of the constitutional monarchy model originally developed in Britain, nowadays a parliamentary democracy that is a constitutional monarchy is considered to differ from one that is a republic only in detail rather than in substance. However, three important factors distinguish monarchies such as the United Kingdom from systems where greater power might otherwise rest with Parliament, other privileges may be nominal or ceremonial

10.
Demographics of Faroe Islands
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The vast majority of the population are ethnic Faroese, of North Germanic descent. Ethnic Faroese are, in terms, among the most homogenous groups ever found. Recent DNA analysis have revealed that Y chromosomes, tracing male descent, are 87% Scandinavian, the studies show that mitochondrial DNA, tracing female descent, is 84% Scottish / Irish. Of the approximately 48,000 inhabitants of the Faroe Islands, 98% are Danish realm citizens, meaning Faroese, Danish, or Greenlandic. By birthplace one can derive the following origins of the inhabitants, born on the Faroes 91. 7%, in Denmark 5. 8%, and in Greenland 0. 3%. The largest group of foreigners are Icelanders comprising 0. 4% of the population, followed by Norwegians and Poles, altogether, on the Faroe Islands there are people from 77 different nationalities. The Faroe Islands have the highest rate of adoption in the world, Faroese is spoken in the entire country as a first language. It is not possible to say exactly how many people speak the Faroese language. The 2011 census, called Manntal, shows that 10% were not born in the Faroe Islands,6. 5% of people older than 15 did not speak Faroese as their mother tongue. 33 persons said that they did not understand Faroese at all, according to the 2011 census,45361 Faroese people spoke Faroese as their first language and 1546 spoke Danish as their first language. The Faroese language is one of the smallest of the Germanic languages and it is most similar to Icelandic and Norwegian. In the twentieth century Faroese became the language and since the Faroes are a part of the Danish realm Danish is taught in schools as a compulsory second language. Faroese language policy provides for the creation of new terms in Faroese suitable for modern life. The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated

Demographics of Faroe Islands
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Faroese student in national costume.

11.
ISO 4217
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The ISO4217 code list is used in banking and business globally. ISO4217 codes are used on tickets and international train tickets to remove any ambiguity about the price. The first two letters of the code are the two letters of the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes and the third is usually the initial of the currency itself, so Japans currency code is JPY—JP for Japan and Y for yen. This eliminates the problem caused by the dollar, franc, peso and pound being used in dozens of different countries. Also, if a currency is revalued, the currency codes last letter is changed to distinguish it from the old currency. Other changes can be seen, however, the Russian ruble, for example, changed from RUR to RUB and these currency units are denominated as one troy ounce of the specified metal as opposed to USD1 or EUR1. The code XTS is reserved for use in testing, the code XXX is used to denote a transaction involving no currency. There are also codes specifying certain monetary instruments used in international finance, the codes for most supranational currencies, such as the East Caribbean dollar, the CFP franc, the CFA franc BEAC and the CFA franc BCEAO. The predecessor to the euro, the European Currency Unit, had the code XEU, the use of an initial letter X for these purposes is facilitated by the ISO3166 rule that no official country code beginning with X will ever be assigned. Because of this rule ISO4217 can use X codes without risk of clashing with a country code. ISO3166 country codes beginning with X are used for private custom use, consequently, ISO4217 can use X codes for non-country-specific currencies without risk of clashing with future country codes. The inclusion of EU in the ISO 3166-1 reserved codes list, the ISO4217 standard includes a crude mechanism for expressing the relationship between a major currency unit and its corresponding minor currency unit. This mechanism is called the exponent and assumes a base of 10. For example, USD is equal to 100 of its currency unit the cent. So the USD has exponent 2, the code JPY is given the exponent 0, because its minor unit, the sen, although nominally valued at 1/100 of a yen, is of such negligible value that it is no longer used. Usually, as with the USD, the currency unit has a value that is 1/100 of the major unit, but in some cases 1/1000 is used. Mauritania does not use a decimal division of units, setting 1 ouguiya equal to 5 khoums, some currencies do not have any minor currency unit at all and these are given an exponent of 0, as with currencies whose minor units are unused due to negligible value. There is also a code number assigned to each currency

ISO 4217
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An airline ticket showing the price in the ISO 4217 code " EUR " (bottom left) and not the currency sign€
ISO 4217
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A list of exchange rates for various base currencies given by a money changer in Thailand, with the Thailand Baht as the counter (or quote) currency.

12.
Western European Summer Time
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Western European Summer Time is a summer daylight saving time scheme,1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. Also sometimes erroneously referred to as Irish Summer Time, the scheme runs from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October each year. At both the start and end of the schemes, clock changes take place at 01,00 UTC, during the winter, Greenwich Mean Time is used. The asymmetry reflects temperature more than the length of daylight, Ireland observes Standard Time during the summer months and changes to UTC+0 in winter. As Irelands winter time period begins on the last Sunday in October and finishes on the last Sunday in March, the result is the same as if it observed summer time. The following countries and territories use Western European Summer Time during the summer, starting in 1916, the dates for the beginning and end of BST each year were mandated by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In February 2002, the Summer Time Order 2002 changed the dates and times to match European rules for moving to, note, Until 1 October 1916 time in all of Ireland was based on Dublin Mean Time, GMT −25 minutes. BBC News report, Tundra time call in clocks debate, UK Government Report, Overview of the pros and cons of British Summer Time

Western European Summer Time
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light blue

13.
Right- and left-hand traffic
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This is so fundamental to traffic flow that it is sometimes referred to as the rule of the road. About two-thirds of the population use RHT, with the remaining 76 countries and territories using LHT. Countries that use LHT account for about a sixth of the worlds area, in the early 1900s some countries including Canada, Spain, and Brazil had different rules in different parts of the country. During the 1900s many countries standardised within their jurisdictions, and changed from LHT to RHT, in 1919,104 of the worlds territories were LHT and an equal number were RHT. From 1919 to 1986,34 of the LHT territories switched to RHT, many of the countries with LHT are former British colonies in the Caribbean, Southern Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Japan, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan, Mozambique, Suriname, East Timor, in Europe, only four countries still drive on the left, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, and Cyprus, all of which are islands. Nearly all countries use one side or the other throughout their entire territory, most exceptions are due to historical considerations and involve islands with no road connection to the main part of a country. China is RHT except the Special Administrative Regions of China of Hong Kong, the United States is RHT except the United States Virgin Islands. The United Kingdom is LHT, but its overseas territories of Gibraltar, according to the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, water traffic is RHT. For aircraft the US Federal Aviation Regulations provide for passing on the right, light rail vehicles generally operate on the same side as other road traffic in the country. Many countries use RHT for automobiles but LHT for trains, often because of the influence of the British on early railway systems, in some countries rail traffic remained LHT after automobile traffic switched to RHT, for example in China, Brazil, and Argentina. However, France, Belgium, and Switzerland have used RHT for automobiles since their introduction, there is no technical reason to prefer one side over the other. Ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Roman troops kept to the left when marching, in 1998, archaeologists found a well-preserved double track leading to a Roman quarry near Swindon. The first reference in English law to an order for LHT was in 1756, northcote Parkinson, believed that ancient travellers on horseback or on foot generally kept to the left, since most people were right handed. If two men riding on horseback were to start a fight, each would edge toward the left, in the year 1300, Pope Boniface VIII directed pilgrims to keep left. In the late 1700s, traffic in the United States was RHT based on use of large freight wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. The wagons had no seat, so a postilion sat on the left rear horse. Seated on the left, the driver preferred that other wagons pass him on the left so that he could be sure to keep clear of the wheels of oncoming wagons, in France, traditionally foot traffic had kept right, while carriage traffic kept left

Right- and left-hand traffic
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A sign on Australia 's Great Ocean Road reminding foreign motorists to keep left. Such signs are placed at the exit of parking areas associated with scenic views, where other road traffic may at times be sparse.
Right- and left-hand traffic
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Right-hand traffic
Right- and left-hand traffic
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One of many road signs in the British county of Kent placed on the right-hand side of the road.
Right- and left-hand traffic
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The change of traffic directions at the Laos–Thai border takes place on Lao territory just off the Thai–Lao Friendship Bridge.

14.
Olaf II of Denmark
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Olaf II Haakonsson was King of Denmark as Olaf II and King of Norway as Olaf IV. Olaf was son of King Haakon VI of Norway and the grandson of King Magnus IV of Sweden. His mother was Queen Margaret I of Denmark which made him the grandson of King Valdemar IV of Denmark, in addition to his claim on the thrones of Denmark and later Norway, he was in the direct succession line to the throne of Sweden. He became King of Denmark when only five years old and later succeeded his father as King of Norway. When his grandfather Valdemar IV of Denmark died, Olaf was just five years old and he was proclaimed King of Denmark by a Danehof in Slagelse the following year. His mother, Queen Margaret, was to serve as regent due to his young age and his proclamation included the title true heir of Sweden added at his mothers insistence since his grandfather had been king of Sweden until forced to abdicate. Olaf was hailed as king in Scania, including the towns controlled by the Hanseatic league since the Treaty of Stralsund in 1370, Queen Margaret signed a coronation charter on behalf of Olaf who was too young to rule until he came of age at fifteen. In the charter Olaf agreed to meet with the Danehof at least once a year, Olaf became King of Norway on his fathers death in 1380. Even when Olaf reached his majority in 1385, his mother ruled through him, with his ascent to the Norwegian throne, Denmark and Norway were thus united in a personal union ruled from Denmark. Denmark and Norway would have the king, with the exception of short interregnums. Despite all the hope Margaret and the peoples of Denmark, Norway and he died unexpectedly in August,1387 at age 16. He was buried at Sorø Abbey on the Danish island of Zealand where also his grandfather and, rumors immediately arose that Olaf had been poisoned which gave rise to many years later to the story of False Olaf. Following his death at Falsterbohus, Olafs mother was proclaimed all powerful lady and mistress, Denmark had at the time no provision that enabled a woman to rule in her own right. The next year Norway proclaimed her Norways reigning queen, after the defeat and overthrow of King Albert in 1389 she was proclaimed all powerful lady of Sweden. On 13 June 1397, she was able to unite the three Scandinavian kingdoms in a union under one crown for her successor Eric of Pomerania by the Kalmar Union. After Olaf, no Norwegian king was to be born on Norwegian soil for more than 550 years, Olafs death was also the end of the male line of the Bjelbo dynasty in Sweden. Prussian historian Johan von Posilge reported that in 1402 a poor man came to the country. A group of merchants from Denmark asked him if he was not well known in Denmark, the merchants left to find another who had seen the king and returned with him. When the newcomer saw the one they took for Olaf, he cried out, many people especially in Norway didnt believe that Olaf had died

15.
Iceland
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Iceland is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of 332,529 and an area of 103,000 km2, the capital and largest city is Reykjavík. Reykjavík and the areas in the southwest of the country are home to over two-thirds of the population. Iceland is volcanically and geologically active, the interior consists of a plateau characterised by sand and lava fields, mountains and glaciers, while many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a climate, despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle. Its high latitude and marine influence still keeps summers chilly, with most of the archipelago having a tundra climate. According to the ancient manuscript Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland began in the year 874 AD when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the first permanent settler on the island. In the following centuries, Norwegians, and to a lesser extent other Scandinavians, emigrated to Iceland, the island was governed as an independent commonwealth under the Althing, one of the worlds oldest functioning legislative assemblies. Following a period of strife, Iceland acceded to Norwegian rule in the 13th century. The establishment of the Kalmar Union in 1397 united the kingdoms of Norway, Denmark, Iceland thus followed Norways integration to that Union and came under Danish rule after Swedens secession from that union in 1523. In the wake of the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars, Icelands struggle for independence took form and culminated in independence in 1918, until the 20th century, Iceland relied largely on subsistence fishing and agriculture, and was among the poorest in Europe. Industrialisation of the fisheries and Marshall Plan aid following World War II brought prosperity, in 1994, it became a part of the European Economic Area, which further diversified the economy into sectors such as finance, biotechnology, and manufacturing. Iceland has an economy with relatively low taxes compared to other OECD countries. It maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. Iceland ranks high in economic, political and social stability and equality, in 2013, it was ranked as the 13th most-developed country in the world by the United Nations Human Development Index. Iceland runs almost completely on renewable energy, some bankers were jailed, and the economy has made a significant recovery, in large part due to a surge in tourism. Icelandic culture is founded upon the nations Scandinavian heritage, most Icelanders are descendants of Germanic and Gaelic settlers. Icelandic, a North Germanic language, is descended from Old Norse and is related to Faroese

16.
Danish krone
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The krone is the official currency of Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, introduced on 1 January 1875. Both the ISO code DKK and currency sign kr. are in use, the former precedes the value. The currency is referred to as the Danish crown in English. Historically, krone coins have been minted in Denmark since the 17th century, one krone is subdivided into 100 øre, the name øre possibly deriving from Latin aureus meaning gold coin. Altogether there are eleven denominations of the krone, with the smallest being the 50 øre coin, formerly there were more øre coins, but those were discontinued due to inflation. The krone is pegged to the euro via the ERM II, the oldest known Danish coin is a penny struck AD 825–840, but the earliest systematic minting produced the so-called korsmønter or cross coins minted by Harald Bluetooth in the late 10th century. Organised minting in Denmark was introduced on a larger scale by Canute the Great in the 1020s, for almost 1,000 years, Danish kings – with a few exceptions – have issued coins with their name, monogram and/or portrait. Taxes were sometimes imposed via the coinage, e. g. by the substitution of coins handed in by new coins handed out with a lower silver content. Danish coinage was based on the Carolingian silver standard. Periodically, the value of the minted coins was reduced. This was mainly done to generate income for the monarch and/or the state, as a result of the debasement, the public started to lose trust in the respective coins. Danish currency was overhauled several times in attempts to restore public trust in the coins, in 1619 a new currency was introduced in Denmark, the krone. One krone had the value of 1 1/2 Danish Rigsdaler Species accounting for 96 Kroneskillinger, later for 144 common Skillings, until the late 18th century, the krone was a denomination equal to 8 mark, a subunit of the Danish rigsdaler. A new krone was introduced as the currency of Denmark in January 1875 and it replaced the rigsdaler at a rate of 2 kroner =1 rigsdaler. This placed the krone on the standard at a rate of 2480 kroner =1 kilogram fine gold. The latter part of the 18th century and much of the 19th century saw expanding economic activity, consequently, banknotes were increasingly used instead of coins. The introduction of the new krone was a result of the Scandinavian Monetary Union, the parties to the union were the three Scandinavian countries, where the name was krone in Denmark and Norway and krona in Sweden, a word which in all three languages literally means crown. The three currencies were on the standard, with the krone/krona defined as 1⁄2480 of a kilogram of pure gold

Danish krone
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1000 kroner banknote
Danish krone
Danish krone
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Two golden 20 kr coins from the Scandinavian Monetary Union, with identical weight and composition. The coin to the left is Swedish and the right one is Danish.
Danish krone
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A tin - bronze50-øre coin

17.
Banknote
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A banknote is a type of negotiable instrument known as a promissory note, made by a bank, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issued by banks, who were legally required to redeem the notes for legal tender when presented to the chief cashier of the originating bank. These commercial banknotes only traded at face value in the served by the issuing bank. Commercial banknotes have primarily been replaced by national banknotes issued by central banks, national banknotes are generally legal tender, meaning that medium of payment is allowed by law or recognized by a legal system to be valid for meeting a financial obligation. Historically, banks sought to ensure that they could always pay customers in coins when they presented banknotes for payment and this practice of backing notes with something of substance is the basis for the history of central banks backing their currencies in gold or silver. Today, most national currencies have no backing in precious metals or commodities and have value only by fiat, with the exception of non-circulating high-value or precious metal issues, coins are used for lower valued monetary units, while banknotes are used for higher values. The idea of using a durable light-weight substance as evidence of a promise to pay a bearer on demand originated in China during the Han Dynasty in 118 BC, the first known banknote was first developed in China during the Tang and Song dynasties, starting in the 7th century. Its roots were in merchant receipts of deposit during the Tang Dynasty, as merchants, during the Yuan Dynasty, banknotes were adopted by the Mongol Empire. In Europe, the concept of banknotes was first introduced during the 13th century by such as Marco Polo. Counterfeiting, the forgery of banknotes, is an inherent challenge in issuing currency and it is countered by anticounterfeiting measures in the printing of banknotes. Fighting the counterfeiting of banknotes and cheques has been a driver of security printing methods development in recent centuries. Paper currency first developed in the Tang Dynasty China during the 7th century, although true paper money did not appear until the 11th century, the usage of paper currency later spread throughout the Mongol Empire. European explorers like Marco Polo introduced the concept in Europe during the 13th century, napoleon issued paper banknotes in the early 1800s. Paper money originated in two forms, drafts, which are receipts for value held on account, and bills, the perception of banknotes as money has evolved over time. Originally, money was based on precious metals, Banknotes were seen as essentially an I. O. U. or promissory note, a promise to pay someone in precious metal on presentation. With the gradual removal of precious metals from the system, banknotes evolved to represent credit money. Notes or bills were referred to in 18th century novels and were often a key part of the plot such as a note drawn by Lord X for £100 which becomes due in 3 months time. Its roots were in merchant receipts of deposit during the Tang Dynasty, as merchants, before the use of paper, the Chinese used coins that were circular, with a rectangular hole in the middle

Banknote
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Banknotes with a face value of 5000 of different currencies.
Banknote
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The current banknotes of the Swiss franc series possess at least eighteen security features. As of 2015, the Swiss 1000-franc banknote is the world's highest value currently-issued banknote, followed by the Singapore 1000-dollar note and the 500 euro note.
Banknote
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Song Dynasty Jiaozi, the world's earliest paper money.
Banknote
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A Yuan dynasty printing plate and banknote.

18.
Norwegian Sea
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The Norwegian Sea is a marginal sea in the North Atlantic Ocean, northwest of Norway. It is located between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea and adjoins the North Atlantic Ocean to the west, in the southwest, it is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a submarine ridge running between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. To the North, the Jan Mayen Ridge separates it from the Greenland Sea, unlike many other seas, most of the bottom of the Norwegian Sea is not part of a continental shelf and therefore lies at a great depth of about two kilometres on average. Rich deposits of oil and natural gas are found under the sea bottom and are being explored commercially, the coastal zones are rich in fish that visit the Norwegian Sea from the North Atlantic or from the Barents Sea for spawning. The warm North Atlantic Current ensures relatively stable and high temperatures, so that unlike the Arctic seas. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Norwegian Sea as follows, a line joining the southernmost point of West Spitzbergen to North Cape of Bear Island, through this island to Cape Bull and thence on to North Cape in Norway. The West coast of Norway between North Cape and Cape Stadt, from a point on the West coast of Norway in Latitude 61°00 North along this parallel to Longitude 0°53 West thence a line to the NE extreme of Fuglö and on to the East extreme of Gerpir in Iceland. The Southeastern limit of Greenland Sea, the Norwegian Sea was formed about 250 million years ago, when the Eurasian plate of Norway and the North American Plate, including Greenland, started to move apart. The existing narrow shelf sea between Norway and Greenland began to widen and deepen, the present continental slope in the Norwegian Sea marks the border between Norway and Greenland as it stood approximately 250 million years ago. In the north it extends east from Svalbard and on the southwest between Britain and the Faroes and this continental slope contains rich fishing grounds and numerous coral reefs. Settling of the shelf after the separation of the continents has resulted in landslides, the coasts of the Norwegian Sea were shaped during the last Ice Age. Large glaciers several kilometres high pushed into the land, forming fjords, removing the crust into the sea and this is particularly clear off the Norwegian coast along Helgeland and north to the Lofoten Islands. The Norwegian continental shelf is between 40 and 200 kilometres wide, and has a different shape from the shelves in the North Sea and it contains numerous trenches and irregular peaks, which usually have an amplitude of less than 100 metres, but can reach up to 400 metres. They are covered with a mixture of gravel, sand, and mud, deeper into the sea, there are two deep basins separated by a low ridge between the Vøring Plateau and Jan Mayen island. The southern basin is larger and deeper, with areas between 3,500 and 4,000 metres deep. The northern basin is shallower at 3, 200–3,300 metres, submarine thresholds and continental slopes mark the borders of these basins with the adjacent seas. To the south lies the European continental shelf and the North Sea, to the west, the Scotland-Greenland Ridge separates the Norwegian Sea from the North Atlantic. This ridge is on average only 500 metres deep, only in a few reaching the depth of 850 metres

Norwegian Sea
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The Vestfjorden with the mountains of the Lofoten archipelago seen from Løvøy Island in Steigen. Vågakaillen (942 m) is the taller of the two peaks in the centre of the image.
Norwegian Sea
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Norwegian Sea, surrounded by shallower seas to the south (North Sea) and northeast (Barents Sea). The white dot near the centre is Jan Mayen, and the dot between Spitsbergen (large island to the north) and Norway is Bear Island.
Norwegian Sea
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Værøy and Røst islands, Lofoten, Norway
Norwegian Sea
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Surface currents in the North Atlantic

19.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other

20.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses

21.
Square kilometre
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Square kilometre or square kilometer, symbol km2, is a multiple of the square metre, the SI unit of area or surface area. For example,3 km2 is equal to 3×2 =3,000,000 m2, topographical map grids are worked out in metres, with the grid lines being 1,000 metres apart. 1,100,000 maps are divided into squares representing 1 km2, each square on the map being one square centimetre in area, for 1,50,000 maps, the grid lines are 2 cm apart. Each square on the map is 2 cm by 2 cm, for 1,25,000 maps, the grid lines are 4 cm apart. Each square on the map is 4 cm by 4 cm, in each case, the grid lines enclose one square kilometre. The area enclosed by the walls of many European medieval cities were about one square kilometre, the approximate area of the old walled cities can often be worked out by fitting the course of the wall to a rectangle or an oval. Examples include Delft, Netherlands 52°0′54″N 4°21′34″E The walled city of Delft was approximately rectangular, the approximate length of rectangle was about 1.30 kilometres. The approximate width of the rectangle was about 0.75 kilometres, a perfect rectangle with these measurements has an area of 1. 30×0.75 =0.9 km2 Lucca 43°50′38″N 10°30′2″E The medieval city is roughly rectangular with rounded north-east and north-west corners. The maximum distance from east to west is 1.36 kilometres, the maximum distance from north to south is 0.80 kilometres. A perfect rectangle of these dimensions would be 1. 36×0.80 =1.088 km2, Brugge 51°12′39″N 3°13′28″E The medieval city of Brugge, a major centre in Flanders, was roughly oval or elliptical in shape with the longer or semi-major axis running north and south. The maximum distance from north to south is 2.53 kilometres, the maximum distance from east to west is 1.81 kilometres. A perfect ellipse of these dimensions would be 2.53 ×1.81 × =3.597 km2. Chester United Kingdom 53°12′1″N 2°52′45″W Chester is one of the smaller English cities that has a city wall. The distance from Northgate to Watergate is about 855 metres. The distance from Eastgate to Westgate is about 589 metres, a perfect rectangle of these dimensions would be × =0.504 km2. Parks come in all sizes, a few are almost exactly one kilometre in area. Here are some examples, Riverside Country Park, UK. Brierley Forest Park, rio de Los Angeles State Park, California, USA Jones County Central Park, Iowa, USA. Using the figures published by golf course architects Crafter and Mogford, assuming a 6,000 metres 18-hole course, an area of 80 hectares needs to be allocated for the course itself

Square kilometre
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Part of an Ordnance Survey map, published 1952. The grid lines are at one kilometre intervals giving each square an area of one square kilometre. The map shows that the area of the island is about two square kilometres.
Square kilometre
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Map of Delft, Netherlands dated 1659. The walls enclosed an area of about 1 square kilometre

22.
Oceanic climate
–
Oceanic climates are defined as having a monthly mean temperature below 22 °C in the warmest month, and above 0 °C in the coldest month. It typically lacks a dry season, as precipitation is evenly dispersed throughout the year. Oceanic climates generally have cool summers and mild to cool winters, Oceanic climates are most dominant in Europe, where they spread much farther inland than in other continents. Oceanic climates can have much storm activity as they are located in the belt of the stormy westerlies, many oceanic climates have frequent cloudy or overcast conditions due to the near constant storms and lows tracking over or near them. Precipitation is both adequate and reliable throughout the year in oceanic climates, extended months of rain and cloudy conditions are common in oceanic climates. Seattle is an example of this, between October and May, Seattle experiences high rainfall and is mostly or partly cloudy six out of every seven days. In most areas with a climate, precipitation comes in the form of rain for the majority of the year. However, some areas with this climate see some snowfall annually during winter, outside of Australia and parts of New Zealand, most areas with an oceanic climate experience at least one snowstorm per year. In the poleward locations of the climate zone, snowfall is more frequent. Overall temperature characteristics of the oceanic climates feature cool temperatures and infrequent extremes of temperature, summers are cool, with the warmest month having a mean temperature below 22 °C. Poleward of the latter is a zone of the subpolar oceanic climate, with long and cold winters and cool. Examples of this climate include parts of coastal Iceland in the Northern Hemisphere and extreme southern Chile, Oceanic climates are not necessarily always found in coastal locations on the aforementioned parallels, however, in most cases oceanic climates parallel higher middle latitude oceans. The polar jet stream, which moves in a west to east direction across the middle latitudes, advancing low pressure systems, storms, in coastal areas of the higher middle latitudes, the prevailing onshore flow creates the basic structure of most oceanic climates. Oceanic climates are a product and reflection of the adjacent to them. In summer, high pressure pushes the prevailing westerlies north of many oceanic climates. As a result of the Gulf Stream, west-coast areas located in high latitudes like Ireland, the UK, Oceanic climates in Europe occur mostly in Northwest Europe, from Ireland and Great Britain eastward to central Europe. Most of France, Germany, Norway, the north coast of Spain, examples of oceanic climates are found in London, Bergen, Dublin, Berlin, Bilbao, Donostia-San Sebastian, Biarritz, Bayonne, Zürich, Copenhagen and Paris. With decreasing distance to the Mediterranean Sea, the climate of Northwest Europe gradually changes to the subtropical dry-summer or Mediterranean climate of southern Europe

Oceanic climate
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Seattle, a city with an oceanic climate
Oceanic climate
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World map showing oceanic climate zones, as defined by the Köppen climate types "Cfb", "Cfc", "Cwb" and "Cwc"
Oceanic climate
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Curitiba, capital city of Brazilian Paraná state features a subtropical highland climate

23.
Gulf Stream
–
The process of western intensification causes the Gulf Stream to be a northward accelerating current off the east coast of North America. At about 40°0′N 30°0′W, it splits in two, with the stream, the North Atlantic Drift, crossing to Northern Europe and the southern stream. The Gulf Stream influences the climate of the east coast of North America from Florida to Newfoundland, and it is part of the North Atlantic Gyre. Its presence has led to the development of strong cyclones of all types, the Gulf Stream is also a significant potential source of renewable power generation. The Gulf Stream may be slowing down as a result of climate change, the Gulf Stream is typically 100 kilometres wide and 800 metres to 1,200 metres deep. The current velocity is fastest near the surface, with the maximum speed typically about 2.5 metres per second. European discovery of the Gulf Stream dates to the 1512 expedition of Juan Ponce de León and its existence was also known to Peter Martyr dAnghiera. Benjamin Franklin became interested in the North Atlantic Ocean circulation patterns, Franklin asked Timothy Folger, his cousin twice removed, a Nantucket Island whaling captain, for an answer. Franklin worked with Folger and other experienced ship captains, learning enough to chart the Gulf Stream and he offered this information to Anthony Todd, secretary of the British Post Office, but it was ignored by British sea captains. Franklins Gulf Stream chart was published in 1770 in England, where it was mostly ignored, subsequent versions were printed in France in 1778 and the U. S. in 1786. The Gulf Stream proper is a current, driven largely by wind stress. The North Atlantic Drift, in contrast, is largely thermohaline circulation–driven, in 1958 the oceanographer Henry Stommel noted that very little water from the Gulf of Mexico is actually in the Stream. By carrying warm water northeast across the Atlantic, it makes Western, a river of sea water, called the Atlantic North Equatorial Current, flows westward off the coast of Central Africa. When this current interacts with the northeastern coast of South America, one passes into the Caribbean Sea, while a second, the Antilles Current, flows north and east of the West Indies. These two branches north of the Straits of Florida. The trade winds blow westward in the tropics, and the westerlies blow eastward at mid-latitudes and this wind pattern applies a stress to the subtropical ocean surface with negative curl across the north Atlantic Ocean. The resulting Sverdrup transport is equatorward, the conservation of potential vorticity also causes bends along the Gulf Stream, which occasionally break off due to a shift in the Gulf Streams position, forming separate warm and cold eddies. This overall process, known as western intensification, causes currents on the boundary of an ocean basin, such as the Gulf Stream

Gulf Stream
–
Surface temperature in the western North Atlantic. North America is black and dark blue (cold), the Gulf Stream red (warm). Source: NASA
Gulf Stream
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Benjamin Franklin 's map of the Gulf Stream
Gulf Stream
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Evolution of the Gulf Stream to the west of Ireland continuing as the North Atlantic Current
Gulf Stream
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Hurricane Alex formed and moved along the axis of the Gulf Stream in 2004.

24.
Police of Denmark
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The police of Denmark is the interior part of the Danish legitimate force providers. The police are empowered to enforce the law and to public and social order. The common police of Denmark consists of 12 districts each managed by a director, the district of Copenhagen is somewhat differently organized due to its size and tasks. Usually a tie is also worn, rank-insignia is worn on the shoulders. The pants are blue with reflective patches. Black shoes are also included in the standard uniform, special tactical suits are made of flame-resistant materials and are worn in situations requiring such equipment. The tactical suit also includes a protected helmet, for the daily duties, the patrol-vehicles are white and dog-patrols are mostly dark blue. They have a blue strobe-light or flashing light and the word POLITI painted on the side in a reflective, the most commonly used patrol vehicles are Ford Mondeo, Volkswagen Passat and Opel Vectra, with 2.0 to 2.2 litre engines. In 2009, the 3.6 litre Škoda Superb was added to the fleet, unmarked cars are usually fitted with engines with a size of around 1.6 to 2.2 litre. In addition a number of small unmarked cars are used like Peugeot 307, Opel Astra, Ford Focus. The Peugeot 607 is used as a security attachment for cabinet members, Toyota Landcruiser and VW Touareg are used for special tasks. Small detachments typically use VW Transporters, while VW LTs and Ford Transit mini-buses are used in larger operations, in extreme events, a variation of the MB Vario is used. It is generally known as the Dutchmans vehicle and this name derives from the fact that these vehicles are fitted in the Netherlands as light APCs with reinforced windows, wheels and metal parts and fire-resistant coating. They are used both as light APCs in event of demonstrations or public disturbances, and as transportation of large numbers of arrestees. Other vehicles in use are the Mercedes-Benz Vito and Nissan Patrols used by the police squads with a horse carrier attached. The traffic police also use unmarked vans for automatic traffic control and these are primarily VW Transporters, Mercedes Benz Vitos, Toyota Hiaces but others are used as well. Some rural police officers use civilian vehicles with a dismountable magnet roof flash, for traffic regulation and VIP and ambulance escorts motorcycles are also used, primarily Yamaha FJR1300A, Honda ST1300a, BMW K1200RS and BMW K1200GT. The standard service handgun is the H&K USP Compact 9mm pistol, for special tasks the H&K MP5 sub-machine gun is used

25.
Currency
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A currency in the most specific use of the word refers to money in any form when in actual use or circulation as a medium of exchange, especially circulating banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money in common use, under this definition, US dollars, British pounds, Australian dollars, and European euros are examples of currency. These various currencies are recognized stores of value and are traded between nations in exchange markets, which determine the relative values of the different currencies. Currencies in this sense are defined by governments, and each type has limited boundaries of acceptance, other definitions of the term currency are discussed in their respective synonymous articles banknote, coin, and money. The latter definition, pertaining to the systems of nations, is the topic of this article. Currencies can be classified into two systems, fiat money and commodity money, depending on what guarantees the value. Some currencies are legal tender in certain jurisdictions, which means they cannot be refused as payment for debt. Others are simply traded for their economic value, digital currency has arisen with the popularity of computers and the Internet. Currency evolved from two basic innovations, both of which had occurred by 2000 BC, originally money was a form of receipt, representing grain stored in temple granaries in Sumer in ancient Mesopotamia, then Ancient Egypt. In this first stage of currency, metals were used as symbols to represent value stored in the form of commodities and this formed the basis of trade in the Fertile Crescent for over 1500 years. Trade could only reach as far as the credibility of that military and it is not known what was used as a currency for these exchanges, but it is thought that ox-hide shaped ingots of copper, produced in Cyprus, may have functioned as a currency. It is thought that the increase in piracy and raiding associated with the Bronze Age collapse, possibly produced by the Peoples of the Sea, brought the trading system of oxhide ingots to an end. In Africa, many forms of value store have been used, including beads, ingots, ivory, various forms of weapons, livestock, the manilla currency, the manilla rings of West Africa were one of the currencies used from the 15th century onwards to sell slaves. African currency is still notable for its variety, and in many various forms of barter still apply. These factors led to the metal itself being the store of value, first silver, now we have copper coins and other non-precious metals as coins. Metals were mined, weighed, and stamped into coins and this was to assure the individual taking the coin that he was getting a certain known weight of precious metal. Coins could be counterfeited, but they created a new unit of account. Most major economies using coinage had several tiers of coins, using a mix of copper, silver, gold coins were used for large purchases, payment of the military and backing of state activities, they were more often used as measures of account than physical coins

Currency
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Cowry shells being used as money by an Arab trader.
Currency
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Song dynasty Jiaozi, the world's earliest paper money.

26.
Nordic Council
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The Nordic Council is a geo-political inter-parliamentary forum for co-operation between the Nordic countries. It was formed after the Second World War in 1952 to promote co-operation between the five Nordic countries and its first concrete result was the introduction in 1952 of a common labour market and free movement across borders without passports for the countries citizens. The Council consists of 87 representatives from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden as well as the areas of the Faroe Islands, Greenland. The representatives are members of parliament in their respective country/area and are elected by those parliaments, the Council holds ordinary sessions each year in October/November and usually one extra session per year with a specific theme. Since 1991 Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania participate with observer status, in 1971, the Nordic Council of Ministers, an intergovernmental forum, was established to complement the Council. During World War II, Denmark and Norway were occupied by Germany, Finland fought a war with the Soviet Union, while Sweden, though neutral. Following the war, the Nordic countries pursued the idea of a Scandinavian defence union to ensure their mutual defence, however, Finland, due to its Paasikivi-Kekkonen policy of neutrality and FCMA treaty with the USSR, could not participate. It was proposed that the Nordic countries would unify their foreign policy and defence, remain neutral in the event of a conflict and not ally with NATO, which some were planning at the time. As Denmark and Norway sought US aid for their post-war reconstruction, further Nordic co-operation, such as an economic customs union, also failed. This led Danish Prime Minister Hans Hedtoft to propose, in 1951 and this proposal was agreed by Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in 1952. The Councils first session was held in the Danish Parliament on 13 February 1953, when Finnish-Soviet relations thawed following the death of Joseph Stalin, Finland joined the council in 1955. On 2 July 1954, the Nordic labour market was created and in 1958, building upon a 1952 passport-free travel area and these two measures helped ensure Nordic citizens free movement around Scandinavia. A Nordic Convention on Social Security was implemented in 1955, there were also plans for a single market but they were abandoned in 1959 shortly before Denmark, Norway and Sweden joined the European Free Trade Area. Finland became a member of EFTA in 1961 and Denmark. This move towards the EEC led to desire for a formal Nordic treaty, further advancements on Nordic cooperation were made in the following years, a Nordic School of Public Health, a Nordic Cultural Fund and Nordic House in Reykjavík. Danish Prime Minister Hilmar Baunsgaard proposed full economic cooperation in 1968, nordek was agreed in 1970, but Finland then backtracked, stating that its ties with the Soviet Union meant it could not form close economic ties with potential members of the EEC. As a consequence, Denmark and Norway applied to join the EEC, in 1970 representatives of the Faroe Islands and Åland were allowed to take part in the Nordic Council as part of the Danish and Finnish delegations. Norway turned down EEC membership in 1972 while Denmark acted as a builder between the EEC and the Nordics

Nordic Council
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Flag
Nordic Council
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Nordic Council headquarters in Copenhagen. White building with Norden sign and flag at street Ved Stranden No. 18

27.
English language
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English /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/ is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now the global lingua franca. Named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England, English is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. It is the third most common language in the world, after Mandarin. It is the most widely learned second language and a language of the United Nations, of the European Union. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch, English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England, Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the King James Bible, and the start of the Great Vowel Shift. Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, modern English spread around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries, English is an Indo-European language, and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Most closely related to English are the Frisian languages, and English, Old Saxon and its descendent Low German languages are also closely related, and sometimes Low German, English, and Frisian are grouped together as the Ingvaeonic or North Sea Germanic languages. Modern English descends from Middle English, which in turn descends from Old English, particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into a number of other English languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian and Forth and Bargy dialects of Ireland. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares new language features with other Germanic languages such as Dutch, German and these shared innovations show that the languages have descended from a single common ancestor, which linguists call Proto-Germanic. Through Grimms law, the word for foot begins with /f/ in Germanic languages, English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as the palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic. The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon, in the fifth century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain and the Romans withdrew from Britain. England and English are named after the Angles, Old English was divided into four dialects, the Anglian dialects, Mercian and Northumbrian, and the Saxon dialects, Kentish and West Saxon. Through the educational reforms of King Alfred in the century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex. The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the period of Old English were written using a runic script. By the sixth century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms and it included the runic letters wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩, and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ð⟩, and ash ⟨æ⟩

English language
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The opening to the Old English epic poem Beowulf, handwritten in half-uncial script: Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon... "Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."
English language
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Countries of the world where English is a majority native language
English language
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Title page of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales c.1400

28.
Brendan
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Saint Brendan of Clonfert, also referred to as Brendan moccu Altae, called the Navigator, the Voyager, the Anchorite, or the Bold, is one of the early Irish monastic saints. He is chiefly renowned for his legendary quest to the Isle of the Blessed, the Voyage of Saint Brendan could be called an immram. He was one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland, Saint Brendans feast day is celebrated on 16 May by the Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians. The first mention of Brendan occurs in Adamnans Vita Sancti Columbae, the first notice of him as a seafarer appears in the ninth century Martyrology of Tallaght. The principal works devoted to the saint and his legend are a Life of Brendan in several Latin and Irish versions and the better known Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot. Unfortunately, the Lives and the Voyage provide little information about his life and travels, they do, however. An additional problem is that the relationship between the Vita and the Navigatio traditions is uncertain. Just when the Vita tradition began is uncertain, the surviving copies date no earlier than the end of the twelfth century, but scholars suggest that a version of the Life was composed before the year 1000. The Navigatio was probably earlier than the Vita, perhaps in the second half of the eighth century. St Aengus the Culdee, in his Litany composed at the close of the eighth century, in 484 AD Brendan was born in Tralee, in County Kerry, in the province of Munster, in the south-west of Ireland. He was born among the Altraige, a tribe originally centred around Tralee Bay, to parents called Finnlug, tradition has it that he was born in the Kilfenora/Fenit area on the North side of the bay. He was baptised at Tubrid, near Ardfert by Saint Erc, for five years he was educated under Saint Ita, the Brigid of Munster. When he was six he was sent to Saint Jarlaths monastery school at Tuam to further his education, Brendan is one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland, one of those said to have been tutored by the great teacher, Finnian of Clonard. At the age of twenty-six, Brendan was ordained a priest by Saint Erc, afterwards, he founded a number of monasteries. Brendan’s first voyage took him to the Arran Islands, where he founded a monastery and he also visited Hinba, an island off Scotland where he is said to have met Columcille. On the same voyage he traveled to Wales, and finally to Brittany, between the years 512 and 530 Brendan built monastic cells at Ardfert, and, at the foot of Mount Brandon, Shanakeel— Seana Cill, usually translated as the old church. From here he is supposed to have set out on his famous seven-year voyage for Paradise, the old Irish Calendars assigned a special feast for the Egressio familiae S. Brendani. St. Brendan is chiefly renowned for his journey to the Isle of the Blessed as described in the ninth century Voyage of St Brendan the Navigator

29.
Old Norse
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Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during about the 9th to 13th centuries. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century, Old Norse was divided into three dialects, Old West Norse, Old East Norse and Old Gutnish. Old West and East Norse formed a continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish, the more obscure dialectal branch, is included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, another term used, used especially commonly with reference to West Norse, was norrœnt mál. In some instances the term Old Norse refers specifically to Old West Norse, the Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, settlements in Kievan Rus, eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, in Kievan Rus, it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has heavily influenced by East Norse. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots and it also influenced the development of the Norman language, and through it and to a smaller extent, that of modern French. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system, contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the phonemes, has changed at least as much as in the other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain asymmetric mutual intelligibility. Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, the languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders

Old Norse
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The Rök Runestone in Östergötland, Sweden, is the longest surviving source of early Old East Norse. It is inscribed on both sides.
Old Norse
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Old West Norse dialect

30.
Dublin
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Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Dublin is in the province of Leinster on Irelands east coast, the city has an urban area population of 1,345,402. The population of the Greater Dublin Area, as of 2016, was 1,904,806 people, founded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin became Irelands principal city following the Norman invasion. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800, following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland. Dublin is administered by a City Council, the city is listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as a global city, with a ranking of Alpha-, which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world. It is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts, administration, economy, the name Dublin comes from the Irish word Dubhlinn, early Classical Irish Dubhlind/Duibhlind, dubh /d̪uβ/, alt. /d̪uw/, alt /d̪u, / meaning black, dark, and lind /lʲiɲ pool and this tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, on the site of the castle gardens at the rear of Dublin Castle. In Modern Irish the name is Duibhlinn, and Irish rhymes from Dublin County show that in Dublin Leinster Irish it was pronounced Duílinn /d̪ˠi, other localities in Ireland also bear the name Duibhlinn, variously anglicized as Devlin, Divlin and Difflin. Historically, scribes using the Gaelic script wrote bh with a dot over the b and those without knowledge of Irish omitted the dot, spelling the name as Dublin. Variations on the name are found in traditionally Irish-speaking areas of Scotland, such as An Linne Dhubh. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. Baile Átha Cliath, meaning town of the ford, is the common name for the city in modern Irish. Áth Cliath is a name referring to a fording point of the River Liffey near Father Mathew Bridge. Baile Átha Cliath was an early Christian monastery, believed to have been in the area of Aungier Street, there are other towns of the same name, such as Àth Cliath in East Ayrshire, Scotland, which is Anglicised as Hurlford. Although the area of Dublin Bay has been inhabited by humans since prehistoric times and he called the settlement Eblana polis. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. The subsequent Scandinavian settlement centred on the River Poddle, a tributary of the Liffey in an area now known as Wood Quay, the Dubhlinn was a small lake used to moor ships, the Poddle connected the lake with the Liffey. This lake was covered during the early 18th century as the city grew, the Dubhlinn lay where the Castle Garden is now located, opposite the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle

31.
Irish language
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Irish, also referred to as Gaelic or Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people. Irish enjoys constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland and it is also among the official languages of the European Union. The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island of Ireland and it has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. The fate of the language was influenced by the power of the English state in Ireland. Elizabethan officials viewed the use of Irish unfavourably, as being a threat to all things English in Ireland and its decline began under English rule in the 17th century. In the latter part of the 19th century, there was a decrease in the number of speakers. Irish-speaking areas were hit especially hard, by the end of British rule, the language was spoken by less than 15% of the national population. Since then, Irish speakers have been in the minority, efforts have been made by the state, individuals and organisations to preserve, promote and revive the language, but with mixed results. Around the turn of the 21st century, estimates of native speakers ranged from 20,000 to 80,000 people. In the 2011 Census, these numbers had increased to 94,000 and 1.3 million, there are several thousand Irish speakers in Northern Ireland. It has been estimated that the active Irish-language scene probably comprises 5 to 10 per cent of Irelands population, there has been a significant increase in the number of urban Irish speakers, particularly in Dublin. In Gaeltacht areas, however, there has been a decline of the use of Irish. Údarás na Gaeltachta predicted that, by 2025, Irish will no longer be the language in any of the designated Gaeltacht areas. Survey data suggest that most Irish people think highly of Irish as a marker of identity. It has also argued that newer urban groups of Irish speakers are a disruptive force in this respect. In An Caighdeán Oifigiúil the name of the language is Gaeilge, before the spelling reform of 1948, this form was spelled Gaedhilge, originally this was the genitive of Gaedhealg, the form used in Classical Irish. Older spellings of this include Gaoidhealg in Classical Irish and Goídelc in Old Irish, the modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent dh in the middle of Gaedhilge, whereas Goidelic languages, used to refer to the language family including Irish, comes from Old Irish

Irish language
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"Caution Children"
Irish language
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Proportion of respondents who said they could speak Irish in the Ireland census 2011 or the Northern Ireland census 2011.
Irish language
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A sign for the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland, in English, Irish and Ulster Scots.
Irish language
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The Pale - According to Statute of 1488

32.
Monarchy of Norway
–
The Norwegian monarch is the monarchical head of state of Norway, which is a constitutional and hereditary monarchy with a parliamentary system. The present monarch is King Harald V, who has reigned since 17 January 1991, succeeding his father, the heir apparent is his only son, Crown Prince Haakon. The crown prince undertakes various public functions, as does the kings wife. The crown prince also acts as regent in the kings absence, there are several other members of the Royal Family, including the kings daughter, grandchildren and siblings. Whilst the Constitution of Norway grants important executive powers to the King, formally the King appoints the government according to his own judgement, but parliamentary practice has been in place since 1884. Constitutional practice has replaced the meaning of the word King in most articles of the constitution from the king personally to the elected government. The powers vested in the monarch are significant, but are treated only as reserve powers, the King does not, by convention, have direct participation in government. He ratifies laws and royal resolutions, receives and sends envoys from and to foreign countries and he has a more tangible influence as the symbol of national unity. The annual New Years Eve speech is one occasion when the King traditionally raises negative issues, the King is also Supreme Commander of the Norwegian Armed Forces and Grand Master of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav and of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit. The King has no role in the Church of Norway. The position of King of Norway has been in existence since the unification of Norway in 872. In recent years members of the Socialist Left party have proposed the abolition of the monarchy during each new session of parliament and this gives the Norwegian monarchy the unique status of being a popularly elected royal family and receiving regular formal confirmations of support from the Storting. Prior to and in the phase of the Viking Age Norway was divided into several smaller kingdoms. Harald Fairhair was the first king of Norway, the boundaries of Fairhairs kingdom were not identical to those of present-day Norway, and upon his death the kingship was shared among his sons. Some historians emphasise the actual control over the country and assert that Olaf II, alias Saint Olaf. Olaf is generally held to have been the force behind Norways final conversion to Christianity. In the 12th and 13th centuries the Norwegian kingdom was at its geographical and cultural peak, the kingdom included Norway, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Shetland, Orkney and other smaller areas in the British Isles. The king had diplomatic relations with most of the European kingdoms and formed alliances with Scotland and Castile, large castles such as Haakons Hall and cathedrals, the foremost being Nidaros Cathedral, were built

Monarchy of Norway
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King of Norway
Monarchy of Norway
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Coat of arms of Norway
Monarchy of Norway
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King Harald receives Norway out of his father's hands in this illustration from the 14th-century Flateyjarbók.
Monarchy of Norway
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King Frederick III

33.
Protestant Reformation
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The period is usually considered to have begun with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Luther in 1517 to the Thirty Years War and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Protestant position, however, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura, the initial movement within Germany diversified, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. The spread of Gutenbergs printing press provided the means for the dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. The largest groups were the Lutherans and Calvinists, Lutheran churches were founded mostly in Germany, the Baltics and Scandinavia, while the Reformed ones were founded in Switzerland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands and Scotland. The new movement influenced the Church of England decisively after 1547 under Edward VI and Elizabeth I, there were also reformation movements throughout continental Europe known as the Radical Reformation, which gave rise to the Anabaptist, Moravian and other Pietistic movements. The Roman Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent, much work in battling Protestantism was done by the well-organised new order of the Jesuits. In general, Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, southern Europe remained Roman Catholic, while Central Europe was a site of a fierce conflict, culminating in the Thirty Years War, which left it devastated. The oldest Protestant churches, such as the Unitas Fratrum and Moravian Church, the later Protestant Churches generally date their doctrinal separation from the Roman Catholic Church to the 16th century. The Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church, by priests who opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice. They especially objected to the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and the abuses thereof, and to simony, the reformers saw these practices as evidence of the systemic corruption of the Churchs hierarchy, which included the pope. Unrest due to the Great Schism of Western Christianity excited wars between princes, uprisings among the peasants, and widespread concern over corruption in the Church, New perspectives came from John Wycliffe at Oxford University and from Jan Hus at the Charles University in Prague. Hus rejected indulgences and adopted a doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, the Roman Catholic Church officially concluded this debate at the Council of Constance by condemning Hus, who was executed by burning despite a promise of safe-conduct. Wycliffe was posthumously condemned as a heretic and his corpse exhumed and burned in 1428, the Council of Constance confirmed and strengthened the traditional medieval conception of church and empire. The council did not address the national tensions or the theological tensions stirred up during the century and could not prevent schism. Pope Sixtus IV established the practice of selling indulgences to be applied to the dead, Pope Alexander VI was one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes. He was the father of seven children, including Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, in response to papal corruption, particularly the sale of indulgences, Luther wrote The Ninety-Five Theses. The Reformation was born of Luthers dual declaration – first, the discovering of Jesus and salvation by faith alone, the Protestant reformers were unanimous in agreement and this understanding of prophecy furnished importance to their deeds. It was the point and the battle cry that made the Reformation nearly unassailable

34.
Fishing fleet
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A fishing fleet is an aggregate of commercial fishing vessels. The term may be used of all operating out of a particular port, all vessels engaged in a particular type of fishing. In 2002 the world fishing fleet numbered about four million vessels, the remaining undecked boats were generally less than 10 metres long, and 65 percent were not fitted with mechanical propulsion systems. The FAO estimates that Asia accounts for over 80 percent of them, the average size of decked vessels is about 20 gross tons. Only one percent of the fishing fleet is larger than 100 gross tons. China has half of these larger vessels, there is no international instrument in force concerning the safety of fishing vessels. Safety regulations for all fishing vessels are left almost entirely to national discretion, FAO, CWP Handbook of Fishery Statistical Standards, Section L, Fishery Fleet FAO, Fishing vessels

35.
British occupation of the Faroe Islands
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The British occupation of the Faroe Islands in World War II, also known as Operation Valentine, was implemented immediately following the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. In April 1940, the United Kingdom occupied the strategically important Faroe Islands to preempt a German invasion, British troops left shortly after the end of the war. At the time of the occupation, the Faroe Islands had the status of an amt of Denmark, following the invasion and occupation of Denmark on 9 April 1940, British forces launched Operation Valentine to occupy the Faroe Islands. An announcement was broadcast by the BBC radio, an aircraft of the Royal Air Force was seen over the Faroese capital Tórshavn on the same day. On 12 April, two destroyers of the British Royal Navy arrived in Tórshavn harbour, following a meeting with Carl Aage Hilbert and Kristian Djurhuus, an emergency meeting of the Løgting was convened the same afternoon. Pro-independence members tried to declare the independence of the Faroe Islands from the Kingdom of Denmark but were outvoted, on 13 April, the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Suffolk arrived at Tórshavn. Colonel T B W Sandall and Frederick Mason then met with the Danish Prefect, the Prefect responded with what Sandall took to be a formal protest, although Hilbert maintained that owing to the occupation of Denmark he was unable to formally represent the Danish government. He duly accepted the British terms on the basis that the UK would not seek to interfere with the affairs of the islands. A formal protest was made by the Løgting, albeit expressing the wish for friendly relations,250 Royal Marines were disembarked, later to be replaced by other British troops. In practice, cordial relations were maintained between the British forces and the Faroese authorities, in May, the Royal Marines were replaced by soldiers of the Lovat Scouts, a Scottish Regiment. In 1942, they were replaced by the Cameronians, from 1944, the British garrison was considerably reduced. The author Eric Linklater was part of the British garrison and his 1956 novel The Dark of Summer was set in the Faroe Islands during the war years. On 20 June 1940, five Swedish naval vessels arrived in the Faroe Islands, four were destroyers bought from Italy, one with civilian passengers, the fifth was a tanker converted to military status. Britain seized all the ships under armed threat, and moved them to the Shetland Islands, although Sweden was a neutral country and not at war with Britain, the British feared Germany would seize them if they continued to Sweden. After political negotiations Sweden secured their return, the British Navy had stripped equipment and caused damage to the ships, which Britain later gave compensation for. The Swedish commander was criticized by other Swedish officers for conceding the ships without resistance, a plaque has been erected by British veterans in Tórshavn Cathedral expressing thanks for the kindness shown to them by the Faroese people during their presence. Approximately 170 marriages took place between British soldiers and Faroese women, the British Consul, Frederick Mason also married a local woman, Karen Rorholm. The Faroe Islands suffered occasional attacks by German Luftwaffe aircraft in the course of the war, drifting sea mines proved to be a considerable problem and resulted in the loss of numerous fishing boats and their crews

British occupation of the Faroe Islands
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2005 Faroese stamp commemorating the friendly wartime relations between British soldiers and the Faroese population
British occupation of the Faroe Islands
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Minnisvarðin, in honour of the 210 men who died at sea during World War II. Erected in 1956, made by Kaare Orud (Norwegian artist), Lamhauge and Waagstein, Jacob Simonsen, the stoneplates were made by the Føroya Mekaniski Grótídnaður.
British occupation of the Faroe Islands
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British naval gun from World War II at Skansin fortress, Tórshavn
British occupation of the Faroe Islands
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The gravestone of the Royal New Zealand Air Force pilot Flying Officer H.J.G. Haeusler, aged 24, near Vágar Airport

36.
European Economic Community
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The European Economic Community was a regional organisation which aimed to bring about economic integration among its member states. It was created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, upon the formation of the European Union in 1993, the EEC was incorporated and renamed as the European Community. In 2009 the ECs institutions were absorbed into the EUs wider framework and it gained a common set of institutions along with the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community as one of the European Communities under the 1965 Merger Treaty. In 1993, a single market was achieved, known as the internal market, which allowed for the free movement of goods, capital, services. In 1994, the market was formalised by the EEA agreement. This agreement also extended the market to include most of the member states of the European Free Trade Association. Upon the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 and this was also when the three European Communities, including the EC, were collectively made to constitute the first of the three pillars of the European Union, which the treaty also founded. The EEC was also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking countries and sometimes referred to as the European Community even before it was renamed as such in 1993. In 1951, the Treaty of Paris was signed, creating the European Coal and this was an international community based on supranationalism and international law, designed to help the economy of Europe and prevent future war by integrating its members. In the aim of creating a federal Europe two further communities were proposed, a European Defence Community and a European Political Community. While the treaty for the latter was being drawn up by the Common Assembly, the ECSC parliamentary chamber, after the Messina Conference in 1955, Paul Henri Spaak was given the task to prepare a report on the idea of a customs union. The so-called Spaak Report of the Spaak Committee formed the cornerstone of the negotiations at Val Duchesse castle in 1956. Together with the Ohlin Report the Spaak Report would provide the basis for the Treaty of Rome, in 1956, Paul Henri Spaak led the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom at the Val Duchesse castle, which prepared for the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The conference led to the signature, on 25 March 1957, the resulting communities were the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. These were markedly less supranational than the communities, due to protests from some countries that their sovereignty was being infringed. The first formal meeting of the Hallstein Commission, was held on 16 January 1958 at the Chateau de Val-Duchesse, the EEC was to create a customs union while Euratom would promote co-operation in the nuclear power sphere. The EEC rapidly became the most important of these and expanded its activities, one of the first important accomplishments of the EEC was the establishment of common price levels for agricultural products. In 1968, internal tariffs were removed on certain products, another crisis was triggered in regard to proposals for the financing of the Common Agricultural Policy, which came into force in 1962

European Economic Community
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French PresidentCharles de Gaulle vetoed British membership, held back the development of Parliament's powers and was at the centre of the 'empty chair crisis' of 1965
European Economic Community
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Flag
European Economic Community
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The High Authority had more executive powers than the Commission which replaced it
European Economic Community
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PresidentJacques Delors the last EEC Commission President.

37.
Geography of the Faroe Islands
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The Faroe Islands are an island group consisting of eighteen islands between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic, about half-way between Iceland and Norway. It is 1,393 square kilometres in area, and includes lakes and rivers. There are 1,117 kilometres of coastline, and no boundaries with any other country. The Faroe Islands generally have cool summers and mild winters, with a usually overcast sky and frequent fog, although at a high latitude, due to the Gulf Stream their climate is ameliorated. The islands are rugged and rocky with some low peaks, the coasts are bordered by cliffs. The Faroe Islands are notable for having the highest sea cliffs in Europe, the lowest point is at sea level, and the highest is at Slættaratindur, which is 882 metres above sea level. The landscape made roadbuilding difficult, and only recently has this been remedied by building tunnels, many of the Faroese islands tend to be elongated in shape. Natural resources include fish and hydropower. Geographic coordinates 62°00′N 06°47′W North, Enniberg, 62°29′,2 N South, Sumbiarsteinur, 61°21′,6 N West, Gáadrangur, 7°40′,1 W East, Stapin, terrain Rugged, rocky, some low peaks, cliffs along most of coast. The coasts are deeply indented with fjords, and the passages between islands are agitated by strong tidal currents

Geography of the Faroe Islands
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Faroe Islands on NASA satellite image
Geography of the Faroe Islands
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View of the west coast of Suðuroy.

38.
North Rona
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Rona is a remote Scottish island in the North Atlantic. Rona is often referred to as North Rona in order to distinguish it from South Rona and it has an area of 109 hectares and a maximum elevation of 108 metres The island lies 71 kilometres north north east of the Butt of Lewis and 18 kilometres east of Sula Sgeir. More isolated than St Kilda, it is the most remote island in the British Isles to have ever been inhabited on a long-term basis and it is also the closest neighbour to the Faroe Islands. Because of the remote location and small area, it is omitted from many maps of the United Kingdom. The name Rona may come from hraun-øy, Old Norse for rough island, the English language qualifier North is sometimes used to distinguish the island from Rona off Skye. Rona is said to have been the residence of Saint Ronan in the eighth century, a tiny early Christian oratory which may be as early as this date, built of unmortared stone, survives virtually complete on the island - the best preserved structure of this type in Scotland. A number of simple cross-slabs of early medieval date are preserved within the structure, the island continued to be inhabited until the entire population of thirty died shortly after 1685 after an infestation by rats, probably the black rat, which reached the island after a shipwreck. The rats raided the food stocks of barley meal and it is possible the inhabitants starved to death and this occurred in a year in which it is reported that no further ships reached the isolated island to supply or trade. The rats themselves eventually starved to death, the huge swells the island experiences preventing their hunting along the rocky shores. It was resettled, but again depopulated by around 1695 in some sort of boating tragedy, after which it remained home to a succession of shepherds and it had a population of nine in 1764. A crew from Ness in Lewis had their boat wrecked in landing at Sula Sgeir in the month of June, captain Oliver, who commanded the Revenue cruiser Prince of Wales, visited Sula Sgeir in the month of August to look for the lost boat. Captain Oliver at once went to Rona, and found the crew consuming the last barrel of potatoes which the poor shepherd had and he took away the former, and left the latter sufficient provision for the winter. Captain Benjamin Oliver commanded the vessel from 1811 until 1847. The last family which lived upon Rona was that of a shepherd named Donald MLeod, otherwise the King of Rona, Sir James Matheson, who bought Lewis in 1844, offered the island to the Government for use as a penal settlement. Although farmers from Lewis have continued to graze sheep on Rona ever since, the island has remained uninhabited, apart from one brief and tragic episode in 1884–85. In June 1884, two men from Lewis, Malcolm MacDonald and Murdo Mackay, having reportedly had a dispute with the minister of their local church, went to stay on Rona to look after the sheep. In August, boatmen who had called at the island reported that the men were well and in good spirits, and had refused offers to take them back to Lewis. In April 1885, the people to visit Rona made a grim discovery

39.
Westray
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Westray is one of the Orkney Islands in Scotland, with a usual resident population of just under 600 people. Its main village is Pierowall, with a centre, the 15th-century Lady Kirk church. With an area of 18.2 square miles, it is the sixth largest of the Orkney Islands, the underlying geology is Rousay type Middle Old Red Sandstone, the flagstones of which make excellent building materials. There is very little peat and the soil is noted for its fertility, at the time of the earliest known settlements, c.3500 BC, in Westray and neighbouring Papa Westray, it is believed that the two islands were joined. A Neolithic and Bronze Age site at the Links of Noltland is in the care of Historic Scotland, the site is severely threatened by the rapid erosion of the overlying sand dunes. The Westray Wife,4 cm carved Neolithic figurine was discovered on the Noltland dig in 2009. - this is the oldest carving of a found in the British Isles. In 2010 some local businesses reported a 45% increase in turnover since the discovery of the figurine, since then, four further figurines have been found, together with a wealth of other artefacts. In 2015, a subterranean building dating from the Bronze Age was uncovered. The excavations won Best Rescue Dig of the year in the prestigious 2014 Current Archaeology awards, several of the figurines and other artefacts from the site can be seen at Westray Heritage Centre and the excavation is open seasonally to visitors. The Heritage Centre also exhibits the Westray Stone- a neolithic carved stone from a tomb which closely resembles the art style of the Boyne Valley in Ireland. Westray constituted a major family estate during the saga period, largescale excavations of Viking- Norse period sites have been undertaken at Tuquoy and Quoygrew and at Langskaill in recent years. And it was at Noltland on Westray too, that one of the most impressive castles in Orkney, the castle was commissioned in the 1560s by Gilbert Balfour, who probably played the leading role in the murder of Lord Darnley, consort of Mary, Queen of Scots. Balfour married Margaret Bothwell, the sister of Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney who endowed him with Westray, the Castle is situated above the Bay of Pierowall, was built in the 1560s. It is notable for a large spiral staircase, second only to Fyvie Castle, while its triple tiers of gunloops are without parallel in Scotland. However, Balfour was executed by the Swedes before he could use it, other attractions include the Romanesque Cross Kirk and the Castle OBurrian sea stack once used as a hermitage. The main ferry terminal is at Rapness with regular sailings by Orkney Ferries to Kirkwall, the islands main industries are fishing, fish farming and cattle farming. Tourism is also important to the island economy, the local cheese, Westray Wife, is an organic unpasturised cheese available in mild and mature varieties. It marries well with the range of Westray chutneys and bakery goods

Westray
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A view of the western side of the island, with Midbea nearby and Langskaill beyond
Westray
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Noup Head Lighthouse, Westray
Westray
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A ruined house on Westray with traditional flag-stone roof

40.
Eysturoy
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Eysturoy meaning East Island is a region and the second-largest of the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic, both in size and population. Eysturoy is separated by a sound from the main island of Streymoy. Eysturoy is extremely rugged, with some 66 separate mountain peaks, including Slættaratindur, important settlements on Eysturoy are Fuglafjørður in the north and the densely populated area of the municipalities of Runavík and Nes in the south. Eysturoy is connected with Streymoy by a bridge over the sound. The islanders humorously refer to this bridge as the bridge over the Atlantic. Leirvík on the east coast of the island is the gateway for transport connections to the islands, particularly Klaksvík on the island of Borðoy. In 2019, the sub-sea Eysturoy Tunnel is to open a link between Runavík, Strendur and Tórshavn, making southern Eysturoy a central place on the Tórshavn-Klaksvík axis. Off the northern tip of the island are the sea stacks Risin og Kellingin. Eysturoy travel guide from Wikivoyage Personal website with 15 aerial photos of Eysturoy

41.
Lava
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Lava is the molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption. The resulting rock after solidification and cooling is called lava. The molten rock is formed in the interior of planets, including Earth. The source of the heat melts the rock within the earth is geothermal energy. When first erupted from a vent, lava is a liquid usually at temperatures from 700 to 1,200 °C. A lava flow is an outpouring of lava, which is created during a non-explosive effusive eruption. When it has stopped moving, lava solidifies to form igneous rock, the term lava flow is commonly shortened to lava. Although lava can be up to 100,000 times more viscous than water, lava can flow great distances before cooling and solidifying because of its thixotropic, explosive eruptions produce a mixture of volcanic ash and other fragments called tephra, rather than lava flows. The word lava comes from Italian, and is derived from the Latin word labes which means a fall or slide. The first use in connection with extruded magma was apparently in an account written by Francesco Serao on the eruption of Vesuvius between May 14 and June 4,1737. Serao described a flow of lava as an analogy to the flow of water. The composition of almost all lava of the Earths crust is dominated by silicate minerals, mostly feldspars, olivine, pyroxenes, amphiboles, micas, igneous rocks, which form lava flows when erupted, can be classified into three chemical types, felsic, intermediate, and mafic. These classes are primarily chemical, however, the chemistry of lava also tends to correlate with the temperature, its viscosity. Felsic or silicic lavas such as rhyolite and dacite typically form lava spines, most silicic lava flows are extremely viscous, and typically fragment as they extrude, producing blocky autobreccias. Felsic magmas can erupt at temperatures as low as 650 to 750 °C, unusually hot rhyolite lavas, however, may flow for distances of many tens of kilometres, such as in the Snake River Plain of the northwestern United States. Intermediate or andesitic lavas are lower in aluminium and silica, and usually somewhat richer in magnesium, intermediate lavas form andesite domes and block lavas, and may occur on steep composite volcanoes, such as in the Andes. Poorer in aluminium and silica than felsic lavas, and also commonly hotter, greater temperatures tend to destroy polymerized bonds within the magma, promoting more fluid behaviour and also a greater tendency to form phenocrysts. Higher iron and magnesium tends to manifest as a darker groundmass, mafic or basaltic lavas are typified by their high ferromagnesian content, and generally erupt at temperatures in excess of 950 °C

42.
Paleogene
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The Paleogene is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago to the beginning of the Neogene Period 23.03 Mya. It is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era of the present Phanerozoic Eon and this period consists of the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene epochs. The terms Paleogene System and lower Tertiary System are applied to the rocks deposited during the Paleogene Period. By dividing the Tertiary Period into two periods instead of directly into five epochs, the periods are more comparable to the duration of periods of the preceding Mesozoic and Paleozoic Eras. The trend was caused by the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. During the Paleogene, the continued to drift closer to their current positions. India was in the process of colliding with Asia, subsequently forming the Himalayas, the Atlantic Ocean continued to widen by a few centimeters each year. Africa was moving north to meet with Europe and form the Mediterranean, inland seas retreated from North America early in the period. Australia had also separated from Antarctica and was drifting towards Southeast Asia, mammals began a rapid diversification during this period. Some of these mammals would evolve into forms that would dominate the land, while others would become capable of living in marine, specialized terrestrial. Those that took to the oceans became modern cetaceans, while those that took to the trees became primates, the group to which humans belong. Birds, which were well established by the end of the Cretaceous. In comparison to birds and mammals, most other branches of life remained unchanged during this period. As the Earth cooled, tropical plants became less numerous and were now restricted to equatorial regions, deciduous plants, which could survive through the seasonal climates the world was now experiencing, became more common. The Paleogene is notable in the context of offshore oil drilling, and especially in Gulf of Mexico oil exploration and these rock formations represent the current cutting edge of deep-water oil discovery. Lower Tertiary explorations to date include, Kaskida Oil Field Tiber Oil Field Jack 2 Paleogene Microfossils, 180+ images of Foraminifera

43.
Skipanes
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Skipanes is a village on the Faeroese island Eysturoy in Runavík Municipality. Together with undir Gøtueiði in Eysturkommuna it forms a tiny conurbation, a small creek acts as a border between the two settlements. It is home to Terji Skibenæs, the guitarist of the Faeroese Viking Metal group Týr, danish site with photographs of Skipanes List of towns in the Faroe Islands

Skipanes
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Skipanes on Skálafjørður

44.
Tundra
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In physical geography, tundra is a type of biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr uplands, there are three types of tundra, Arctic tundra, alpine tundra, and Antarctic tundra. In tundra, the vegetation is composed of shrubs, sedges and grasses, mosses. Scattered trees grow in tundra regions. The ecotone between the tundra and the forest is known as the line or timberline. Arctic tundra occurs in the far Northern Hemisphere, north of the taiga belt, the word tundra usually refers only to the areas where the subsoil is permafrost, or permanently frozen soil. Permafrost tundra includes vast areas of northern Russia and Canada, the polar tundra is home to several peoples who are mostly nomadic reindeer herders, such as the Nganasan and Nenets in the permafrost area. Arctic tundra contains areas of landscape and is frozen for much of the year. The soil there is frozen from 25–90 cm down, and it is impossible for trees to grow, instead, bare and sometimes rocky land can only support low growing plants such as moss, heath, and lichen. There are two seasons, winter and summer, in the polar tundra areas. During the winter it is cold and dark, with the average temperature around −28 °C. However, extreme temperatures on the tundra do not drop as low as those experienced in taiga areas further south. During the summer, temperatures rise somewhat, and the top layer of seasonally-frozen soil melts, the tundra is covered in marshes, lakes, bogs and streams during the warm months. Generally daytime temperatures during the rise to about 12 °C. Arctic tundras are sometimes the subject of conservation programs. In Canada and Russia, many of areas are protected through a national Biodiversity Action Plan. Tundra tends to be windy, with winds often blowing upwards of 50–100 km/h, however, in terms of precipitation, it is desert-like, with only about 15–25 cm falling per year. Although precipitation is light, evaporation is also relatively minimal, there is a natural pattern of accumulation of fuel and wildfire which varies depending on the nature of vegetation and terrain

45.
Precipitation
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In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, graupel, Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and precipitates. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but suspensions, because the vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated, Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers, moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is active when freezing rain is occurring. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain, provided necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely stratus and cumulonimbus. Eventually, the droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy, thundersnow is possible within a cyclones comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, on the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating. The movement of the trough, or intertropical convergence zone. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 cubic kilometres of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres over land. Given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres, Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies, e. g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 km3 of it over the oceans, given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres. Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform, and orographic rainfall, Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice

46.
Calluna
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Calluna vulgaris is the sole species in the genus Calluna in the flowering plant family Ericaceae. It is the dominant plant in most heathland and moorland in Europe and it is tolerant of grazing and regenerates following occasional burning, and is often managed in nature reserves and grouse moors by sheep or cattle grazing, and also by light burning. The specific epithet vulgaris is Latin for common, Calluna is differentiated from Erica by its corolla and calyx each being in four parts instead of five. Calluna has small scale-leaves borne in opposite and decussate pairs, whereas those of Erica are generally larger and in whorls of 3-4, the flowers emerge in late summer, in wild plants these are normally mauve, but white-flowered plants also occur occasionally. They are terminal in racemes with sepal-like bracts at the base with a superior ovary, unlike Erica, Calluna sometimes sports double flowers. Calluna is sometimes referred to as Summer heather to distinguish it from winter or spring flowering species of Erica, Calluna is native to Europe, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Azores. It has been introduced many other places worldwide with suitable climates, including North America, Australia, New Zealand. Despised until the 19th century for its associations with the most rugged rural poverty and it is a very popular ornamental plant in gardens and for landscaping, in lime-free areas where it will thrive, but has defeated many a gardener on less acid soil. There are many named cultivars, selected for variation in colour and for different foliage colour. Different cultivars have flower colours ranging from white, through pink and a range of purples. The flowering season with different cultivars extends from late July to November in the northern hemisphere, the flowers may turn brown but still remain on the plants over winter, and this can lead to interesting decorative effects. Cultivars with ornamental foliage are usually selected for reddish and golden leaf colour, a few forms can be silvery grey. Many of the ornamental foliage forms change colour with the onset of winter weather, some forms are grown for distinctive young spring foliage. Cultivars include ‘Beoley Crimson’, ‘Boskoop’, ‘Cuprea’, Firefly, ‘Long White’, willow Grouse and Red Grouse feed on the young shoots and seeds of this plant. Both adult and larva of the Heather Beetle Lochmaea suturalis feed on it, the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species also feed on the plant, notably the small emperor moth Saturnia pavonia. Formerly heather was used to dye wool yellow and to tan leather, with malt, heather is an ingredient in gruit, a mixture of flavourings used in the brewing of heather-beer during the Middle Ages before the use of hops. The use of heather in the brewing of modern heather beer is carefully regulated, by law, the heather must be cleaned carefully before brewing, as the undersides of the leaves may contain a dusting of an ergot-like fungus, which is a hallucinogenic intoxicant. From time immemorial heather has been used for making besoms, a practice recorded in Buy Broom Buzzems a song written by William Purvis from Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Calluna
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Calluna
Calluna
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Calluna flower close-up

47.
Cirsium palustre
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Cirsium palustre, the marsh thistle or European swamp thistle, is a herbaceous biennial species of the genus Cirsium. Cirsium palustre is a tall thistle which reaches up to 2 metres in height, the strong stems have few branches and are covered in small spines. In its first year the plant grows as a rosette, at first with narrow, entire leaves with spiny, dark purple edges. In the subsequent years the plant grows a tall, straight stem, in the northern hemisphere these are produced from June to September. The flowers are white, in which case the purple edges to the leaves are absent. It is native to Europe where it is common on damp ground such as marshes, wet fields, moorland. In Canada and the northern United States, it is a species that has become invasive. It grows in dense thickets that can crowd out slower growing native plants, Cirsium palustre is broadly distributed throughout much of Europe and eastward to central Asia. This thistles occurrence is linked to the spread of agriculture from the mid-Holocene era or before. It is a constant plant of several fen-meadow plant associations, including the Juncus subnodulosus-Cirsium palustre fen-meadow, the flowers are visited by a wide variety of insects, featuring a generalised pollination syndrome. Photo of herbarium specimen at Missouri Botanical Garden

Cirsium palustre
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Cirsium palustre

48.
Fauna of the Faroe Islands
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The fauna of the Faroe Islands is characterized by the islands remote location in the North Atlantic Ocean. There are few species, but relatively many breeding seabirds. Some sub-species and breeds are endemic, all land mammals were introduced by humans. The bird fauna of the Faroes is dominated by seabirds and birds attracted to open land like heather, probably due to the lack of woodland, there are special Faroese races of eider, starling, wren, guillemot, and black guillemot. Puffins, razorbills, and guillemots, are very common seabirds in Faroe, gannets are common around the islands, but only breed on Mykines. Black guillemots, eiders and shag are common around the coast, there are six species of seagulls and the storm petrel colony on Nólsoy is the largest in the world. Inland birds are fewer in numbers, oyster catcher, curlew, common snipe and tern are common on the heather hills. The Faroese starling is the biggest starling in the world, and is common in. In later years they have been joined by blackbirds which are growing very fast in numbers, crows and the Faroese-Icelandic subspecies of raven are also very common around human habitation. Until the 19th century a special coloured raven, the raven was common on the islands. This was not a race, but a colour variation of the Faroese-Icelandic sub-species. In the same nest, three youngsters could be black while one could be white-speckled and this colour variation was unique to the Faroe Islands, and maybe because of this, the demand from foreign collectors was big for these ravens. This might be a reason why it became extinct, the last white-speckled raven was seen on Nólsoy in 1949, the land mammals of Faroe have all been introduced, accidentally or deliberately by people. Although nine species of land mammal have been reported on the Faroe Islands, only three have survived and are thriving on the islands today, mountain hare, brown rat. Mountain hares were introduced from Kragerø in Norway in 1854, hares are present on all but three of the smaller islands, Koltur, Stóra Dímun and Lítla Dímun. The Faroese house mouse was introduced accidentally from Britain by the Irish monks as early as the 6th century. It is the Western European house mouse but has earlier been labelled as Mus musculus and this naming has also been used to name the sub-species which has evolved in the isolated island populations. The Nólsoy house mouse is a called and the Mykines house mouse is also a sub-species called

Fauna of the Faroe Islands
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The Faroese starling
Fauna of the Faroe Islands
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The white-speckled raven, a colour variation of the Faroese sub-species (Corvus corax varius), was unique to the Faroe Islands. The last one was seen in 1949.
Fauna of the Faroe Islands
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Faroese mountain hare (Lepus timidus)
Fauna of the Faroe Islands
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A grey seal (Halichoerus grypus), on the beach in Sandvík 2004.

49.
List of birds of the Faroe Islands
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In the Faroe Islands there are currently about 110 different species of birds although, including vagrants during the last 150 years, over 260 species have been recorded. There are about 40 common breeding birds, including the seabirds fulmar, puffin, storm petrel, black-legged kittiwake, guillemot, symbolically, the most important of the birds of the Faroe Islands is the Eurasian oystercatcher. Their annual arrival on about 12 March is celebrated by the Faroese people as the start of spring, for this reason, the tjaldur, is recognised as the national bird of the Faroes. However, in numbers, the avifauna is dominated by a two million pairs of breeding seabirds of several species. There are also some resident landbirds and many visitors, both passage migrants and breeders, as well as several species recorded occasionally as vagrants, mainly from Europe. The Faroese postal system, the Postverk Føroya, prints stamps portraying Faroe birds, the great auk also visited the Faroes and may have bred there, but became extinct throughout its range in the North Atlantic in the early 19th century due to human predation. The pied raven, a morph of the common raven. Historically, harvesting seabirds for food was an important source of nutrition for the islanders, a reduced and strictly regulated harvest, mainly of fulmars and puffins, continues. In general, the seabirds and their areas are now strongly protected. The most common birds are listed with their Faroese names too, ISBN 0-7100-6911-1 About the stamps and the birds PDF download of Faroese birds Faroenature. net - Bird Names

List of birds of the Faroe Islands
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Atlantic puffins in Mykines
List of birds of the Faroe Islands
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The tjaldur (oystercatcher) is the national bird and can be found all over the country.
List of birds of the Faroe Islands
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The European storm petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus), or drunnhvíti, can be best observed in Nólsoy in the biggest colony of the species in the world.
List of birds of the Faroe Islands
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The gannet (Morus bassanus), known as súla, is the biggest bird in the Faroe Islands.

50.
Seabird
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Seabirds are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. The first seabirds evolved in the Cretaceous period, and modern seabird families emerged in the Paleogene, in general, seabirds live longer, breed later and have fewer young than other birds do, but they invest a great deal of time in their young. Most species nest in colonies, which can vary in size from a few birds to millions. Many species are famous for undertaking long annual migrations, crossing the equator or circumnavigating the Earth in some cases and they feed both at the oceans surface and below it, and even feed on each other. Seabirds can be highly pelagic, coastal, or in some cases spend a part of the year away from the sea entirely, Seabirds and humans have a long history together, they have provided food to hunters, guided fishermen to fishing stocks and led sailors to land. Many species are threatened by human activities, and conservation efforts are under way. There exists no single definition of which groups, families and species are seabirds, and most definitions are in some way arbitrary. In the words of two scientists, The one common characteristic that all seabirds share is that they feed in saltwater. However, by all of the Sphenisciformes and Procellariiformes, all of the Pelecaniformes except the darters. The phalaropes are usually included as well, since although they are waders, loons and grebes, which nest on lakes but winter at sea, are usually categorized as water birds, not seabirds. Although there are a number of sea ducks in the family Anatidae that are truly marine in the winter, many waders and herons are also highly marine, living on the seas edge, but are also not treated as seabirds. Seabirds, by virtue of living in a depositional environment, are well represented in the fossil record. In the Paleogene the seas were dominated by early Procellariidae, giant penguins, modern genera began their wide radiation in the Miocene, although the genus Puffinus might date back to the Oligocene. The highest diversity of seabirds apparently existed during the Late Miocene, Seabirds have made numerous adaptations to living on and feeding in the sea. Wing morphology has been shaped by the niche an individual species or family has evolved, so that looking at a wings shape, longer wings and low wing loading are typical of more pelagic species, while diving species have shorter wings. Seabirds also almost always have webbed feet, to aid movement on the surface as well as assisting diving in some species. The Procellariiformes are unusual among birds in having a sense of smell, which is used to find widely distributed food in a vast ocean. Salt glands are used by seabirds to deal with the salt they ingest by drinking and feeding, the excretions from these glands are almost pure sodium chloride

Seabird
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The sooty tern is highly aerial and marine and will spend months flying at sea, returning to land only for breeding.
Seabird
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The Cretaceous seabird Hesperornis
Seabird
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Cormorants, like this double-crested cormorant, have plumage that is partly wettable, allowing them to dive without fighting buoyancy.
Seabird
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Wilson's storm petrels pattering on the water's surface

51.
Eurasian wren
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The Eurasian wren is a very small bird, and the only member of the wren family Troglodytidae found in Eurasia and Africa. In Anglophone Europe, it is known simply as the wren. It was once lumped with Troglodytes hiemalis of eastern North America, the Eurasian wren occurs in Europe, a belt of Asia from northern Iran and Afghanistan across to Japan. It is migratory in only the parts of its range. It is also highly polygynous, a mating system for passerines. The scientific name is taken from the Greek word troglodytes, meaning cave-dweller, the 9- to 10. 5-cm-long and 6-10 g wren is rufous brown above, greyer beneath, barred with darker brown and grey, even on wings and tail. The bill is brown, the legs pale brown. Young birds are distinctly barred. The plumage is subject to variation, and where populations have been isolated. There are around 27 subspecies of this taxonomically complex bird, the disputed subspecies orii, the Daito winter wren, became extinct around 1940 – if it is indeed a valid taxon and not merely based on an anomaly. The St Kilda wren is greyer above, whiter beneath, with more abundant bars on the back and this small, stump-tailed wren is almost as familiar in Europe as the robin. It is mouse-like, easily lost sight of when it is hunting for food, in most of northern Europe and Asia, it nests mostly in coniferous forests, where it is often identified by its long and exuberant song. Although it is an insectivore, it can remain in cold and even snowy climates by foraging for insects on substrates such as bark. Its movements as it creeps or climbs are incessant rather than rapid, its short flights swift and direct but not sustained and it is a bird of the uplands even in winter, vanishing into the heather when snow lies thick above, a troglodyte indeed. It frequents gardens and farms, but it is quite as abundant in thick woods, at night, usually in winter, it often roosts, true to its scientific name, in dark retreats, snug holes and even old nests. In hard weather, it may do so in parties, consisting of either the family or of individuals gathered together for warmth. For the most part insects and spiders are its food, but in winter large pupae are taken, when this bird is annoyed or excited, its call runs into an emphatic churr, not unlike clockwork running down. Its song is a gushing burst of sweet music, loud and it has an enormous voice for its size, ten times louder, weight for weight, than a cockerel

52.
Black guillemot
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The black guillemot or tystie is a medium-sized alcid. The genus name Cepphus is from Ancient Greek kepphos, a waterbird mentioned by Greek authors including Aristotle. The species name grylle was the local name for this bird in Gotland at the time of Linnaeuss visit there in 1741. The English word guillemot is from French guillemot probably derived from Guillaume, adult birds have black bodies with a white wing patch, a thin dark bill, and red legs and feet. They show white wing linings in flight, in winter, the upperparts are pale grey and the underparts are white. The wings remain black with the white patch on the inner wing. They are 32–38 cm in length, and with a 49–58 cm wingspan, in the UK it is a fairly common breeding bird in western and northern Scotland and Ireland. In the rest of Great Britain they only breed at St. Bees Head in Cumbria, some birds breed in Alaska where their range overlaps with the pigeon guillemot. They usually lay their eggs in rocky sites near water, there are five listed subspecies of the black guillemot, C. g. mandtii –, northeast Canada to Svalbard to northern Siberia & northern Alaska. C. g. arcticus –, northeast United States, southeast Canada & south Greenland to the Ireland and Britain, C. g. faroeensis –, Faroe Islands. C. g. grylle –, Baltic Sea and these birds often overwinter in their breeding areas, moving to open waters if necessary, but usually not migrating very far south. They dive for food from the surface, swimming underwater and they mainly eat fish and crustaceans, also some mollusks, insects and plant material. The call in the season is a high whistle. The red gape is also prominent then, black Guillemots on the Copeland Islands in 2008

53.
Pied raven
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The pied raven was a colour morph of the North Atlantic subspecies of the common raven which was only found on the Faroe Islands and has disappeared since the mid-twentieth century. It had large areas of white feathering, most frequently on the head, the wings and the belly, apart from that, it looked like the black ravens. The pied raven received binomial names such as Corvus leucophaeus and Corvus leucomelas and it is currently referred to as Corvus corax varius morpha leucophaeus. In modern Faroese, the bird is called hvítravnur, older name gorpur bringu hvíti, normal individuals of the subspecies varius, which is found on Iceland and the Faroe Islands, already show a tendency towards more extensive white feather bases compared with the nominate subspecies. But only on the Faroes, a mutation in the melanin metabolism would become fixed in the population, as these birds freely interacted and interbred with the black ones which are still found on the islands, they did not constitute a distinct subspecies. The first record of the raven seems to be in the pre-1500 kvæði Fuglakvæði eldra which mentions 40 local species. Later, the raven is mentioned in the reports of Lucas Debes. Carl Julian von Graba in 1828 speaks of ten individuals he saw himself and states that these birds, díðrikur á Skarvanesi, the first Faroe painter, painted the Fuglar series, a number of portrayal of birds. On his 18 fuglar, the animal in the right corner can be identified as a pied raven. The painting is currently on display in the Listaskálin museum of Faroe art in Tórshavn, as exemplified by Skarvanesis painting, which obviously was done from stuffed birds, the pied raven was an object of interest to collectors. Such sums, an amount of money for the impoverished Faroe farmers. Additionally, ravens in general were hunted as pests, in the mid-nineteenth century, every Faroe male of hunting age was ordered by royal decree to shoot at least one raven or two other predatory birds per year or be fined four skillings. One of the last pied raven specimens was shot on November 2,1902 on Mykines, in the autumn of 1916, another bird was seen at Velbastaður and on Koltur. The last known individual was found in the winter of 1947 on Nólsoy, as these last sightings raised widespread interest, it seems probable that after 1948, no pied raven has been seen. The pied raven, being a variation, only differed in one or very few alleles from the black birds. The piebald allele was or were recessive or only caused the novel coloration if they were all present and this is evidenced by the last sightings which occurred in the absence of a regular breeding population of piebald birds, and the observations of H. C. Thus, it is not certain that the form is indeed extinct, if one can speak of extinction in any, theoretically, the allele could still be present but hidden in black individuals of the subspecies and thus, a pied raven could once again be born one day. As the raven population on the Faroes has declined to a few hundred birds at best over the recent decades, this does not seem very likely

54.
Endemism
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The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species that is endemic is precinctive, the word endemic is from New Latin endēmicus, from Greek ενδήμος, endēmos, native. Endēmos is formed of en meaning in, and dēmos meaning the people, the term, precinctive, has been suggested by some scientists, and was first used in botany by MacCaughey in 1917. It is the equivalent of endemism, precinction was perhaps first used by Frank and McCoy. That definition excludes artificial confinement of examples by humans in far-off botanical gardens or zoological parks, physical, climatic, and biological factors can contribute to endemism. The orange-breasted sunbird is found in the fynbos vegetation zone of southwestern South Africa. The glacier bear is found only in limited places in Southeast Alaska, political factors can play a part if a species is protected, or actively hunted, in one jurisdiction but not another. There are two subcategories of endemism, paleoendemism and neoendemism, paleoendemism refers to species that were formerly widespread but are now restricted to a smaller area. Neoendemism refers to species that have arisen, such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through hybridization. Endemics can easily become endangered or extinct if their restricted habitat changes, particularly—but not only—due to human actions, there were millions of both Bermuda petrels and Bermuda cedars in Bermuda when it was settled at the start of the seventeenth century. By the end of the century, the petrels were thought extinct, cedars, already ravaged by centuries of shipbuilding, were driven nearly to extinction in the twentieth century by the introduction of a parasite. Bermuda petrels and cedars are now rare, as are species endemic to Bermuda

55.
Mountain hare
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The mountain hare, also known as blue hare, tundra hare, variable hare, white hare, snow hare, alpine hare and Irish hare, is a hare that is largely adapted to polar and mountainous habitats. This species is distributed from Fennoscandia to eastern Siberia, in there are isolated mountain populations in the Alps, Ireland, Scotland. The mountain hare has also introduced to New Zealand, Iceland, Shetland, Orkney, the Isle of Man, the Peak District, Svalbard, Kerguelen Islands, Crozet Islands. In the Alps, the mountain hare lives at elevations from 700 to 3800 m, the mountain hare is a large species, though it is slightly smaller than the European hare. It grows to a length of 45–65 cm, with a tail of 4–8 cm, in summer, for all populations of mountain hares, the coat is various shades of brown. In preparation for winter most populations moult into a white pelage, the tail remains completely white all year round, distinguishing the mountain hare from the European hare, which has a black upper side to the tail. The subspecies Lepus timidus hibernicus stays brown all year and individuals rarely develop a white coat, the Irish variety may also have a dark/grey upper surface to the tail, which in other populations always remains white. Studies have shown that the diet of the mountain hare varies from region to region and it seems to be somewhat dependent on the particular habitat that the population under study lives in. For example, in northern Scandinavia where snow may blanket the ground for many months, in areas where snowfall is rare, such as Ireland, grass may form the bulk of the diet. Given a choice, mountain hares in Scotland and Ireland seem to prefer feeding on grasses, one study looking at mountain hares on a coastal grassland environment in Ireland found that grasses constituted over 90% of the diet. This was higher than the percentage of grass in the diet of the European rabbit that inhabited the same environment, the mountain hare is regionally the favourite prey of the golden eagle and may additionally be predated by Eurasian eagle-owls and red foxes. Stoats may prey on young hares, in northern parts of Finland, Norway and Sweden, the mountain hare and the European hare compete for habitat. The Arctic hare was once considered a subspecies of the mountain hare, similarly, some scientists believe that the Irish hare should be regarded as a separate species. In the European Alps the mountain hare lives at elevations from 700 to 3800 m, mountain hares are routinely shot in the Scottish Highlands both as part of paid hunting ‘tours’ and by gamekeepers managing red grouse populations. Much of this activity is secretive but investigations have revealed that tens of thousands of hares could be being culled every year, the campaign has revealed widespread public support for a ban on hare hunting in Scotland

56.
House mouse
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The house mouse is a small mammal of the order Rodentia, characteristically having a pointed snout, small rounded ears, and a long naked or almost hairless tail. It is one of the most numerous species of the genus Mus, although a wild animal, the house mouse mainly lives in association with humans. The house mouse has been domesticated as the pet or fancy mouse, and as the laboratory mouse, the complete mouse reference genome was sequenced in 2002. Laboratory mice derived from the mouse are by far the most common mammalian species used in genetically engineered models for scientific research. House mice have an body length of 7. 5–10 cm. The weight is typically 40–45 g, in the wild they vary in colour from light to dark agouti, but domesticated fancy mice and laboratory mice are produced in many colors ranging from white to champagne to black. They have short hair and some, but not all, sub-species have a light belly, the ears and tail have little hair. The hind feet are short compared to Apodemus mice, only 15–19 mm long, the voice is a high-pitched squeak. House mice thrive under a variety of conditions, they are found in and around homes and commercial structures, as well as in open fields, newborn males and females can be distinguished on close examination as the anogenital distance in males is about double that of the female. From the age of about 10 days, females have five pairs of mammary glands, when sexually mature, the most striking and obvious difference is the presence of testicles on the males. These are large compared to the rest of the body and can be retracted into the body, tail length varies according to the environmental temperature of the mouse during postnatal development, so mice living in colder regions tend to have shorter tails. In addition to the regular pea-sized thymus organ in the chest, mice are mammals of the Glires clade, which means they are amongst the closest relatives of humans other than lagomorphs, treeshrews, flying lemurs and other primates. Some populations are hybrids of different subspecies, including the Japanese house mouse, mice are good jumpers, climbers, and swimmers, and are generally considered to be thigmotactic, i. e. usually attempts to maintain contact with vertical surfaces. Mice are mostly crepuscular or nocturnal, they are averse to bright lights, the average sleep time of a captive house mouse is reported to be 12.5 hours per day. They live in a variety of hidden places near food sources. Mice are territorial, and one dominant male usually lives together with several females, dominant males respect each others territories and normally enter anothers territory only if it is vacant. If two or more males are housed together in a cage, they become aggressive unless they have been raised together from birth. House mice primarily feed on plant matter, but are omnivorous and they eat their own faeces to acquire nutrients produced by bacteria in their intestines

House mouse
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House mouse
House mouse
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Eating
House mouse
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A two-day-old mouse
House mouse
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A two-week-old mouse, just about to open its eyes

57.
Coat of arms of the Faroe Islands
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The coat of arms of the Faroe Islands first appears on one of the medieval chairs in Kirkjubøur from around the 15th century. It depicts a silver ram passant with golden hooves and horns on an azure shield, later uses show a ram in a seal used by the Løgrættumenn, members of the Old Faroese law Court, the Løgting. In 1948, the coat of arms came into use again after the Home Rule Act came into force, not by the Løgting, the old title Løgmaður had been reestablished, but this time as the leader of the government, and the coat of arms followed him. On 1 April 2004, the Prime Ministers Office announced that from then on that it would use a new version of the coat of arms and this new interpretation was based on the original found depicted on the chairs from Kirkjubøur. The colours were inspired from the Faroese flag Merkið, and golden yellow was added, the new coat of arms depicts a ram on a blue shield ready to defend. It can be used by Cabinet Ministries and by official Faroese representatives, though some still use the old symbol

Coat of arms of the Faroe Islands
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Coat of arms at the Faroese Embassy in Copenhagen
Coat of arms of the Faroe Islands
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Modern coat of arms, depicting a Veðrur

58.
Cetacea
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Cetacea are a widely distributed and diverse clade of aquatic mammals that today consists of the whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Most species live in the sea, some in rivers, the name is derived from the Latin cetus whale and Greek ketos huge fish. The extinct ancestors of modern whales are the Archaeoceti, while cetaceans were historically thought to have descended from mesonychids, molecular evidence supports them as a relative of Artiodactyls. Cetaceans belong to the order Cetartiodactyla and their closest living relatives are hippopotamuses and other hoofed mammals, having diverged about 50 million years ago. Cetaceans range in size from the 1 m and 50 kg Mauis dolphin to the 29.9 m and 190,000 kg blue whale and they have streamlined bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers. Dolphins are able to very tight turns while swimming at high speeds. The hindlimbs of cetaceans are internal, and are thought to be vestigial, baleen whales have short hairs on their mouth, unlike the toothed whales. Cetaceans have well-developed senses—their eyesight and hearing are adapted for both air and water, and baleen whales have a system in their vibrissae. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to maintain body heat in cold water, Some species are well adapted for diving to great depths. Although cetaceans are widespread, most species prefer the waters of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. They spend their lives in the water, having to mate, give birth, molt or escape predators, like killer whales. This has drastically affected their anatomy to be able to do so and they feed largely on fish and marine invertebrates, but a few, like the killer whale, feed on large mammals and birds, such as penguins and seals. Some baleen whales are specialised for feeding on benthic creatures, male cetaceans typically mate with more than one female, although the degree of polygyny varies with the species. Cetaceans are not shown to have pair bonds, male cetacean strategies for reproductive success vary between herding females, defending potential mates from other males, or whale song which attracts mates. Calves are typically born in the fall and winter months, cetaceans produce a number of vocalizations, notably the clicks and whistles of dolphins, the moaning songs of the humpback whale. The meat, blubber and oil of cetaceans have traditionally used by indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Cetaceans have been depicted in cultures worldwide. Dolphins are commonly kept in captivity and are sometimes trained to perform tricks and tasks

59.
Long-finned pilot whale
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The long-finned pilot whale is a large species of oceanic dolphin. It shares the genus Globicephala with the pilot whale. Long-finned pilot whales are known as such because of their unusually long pectoral fins, Pilot whales get their name from the original belief that there was a pilot or lead individual in their groups. The name for the genus, Globicephala is derived from a combination of the Latin words globus, the specific name melas is Greek for black. This species has earned the nickname of pothead whale in some places because the shape of its head reminded early whalers of black cooking pots. This species was first classified in 1809 by Thomas Stewart Traill, however, this scientific name was changed later to Globicephala melaena. Then in 1986, the name for this species was reverted to its original form as melas. The sexes are dimorphic, with females reaching lengths of up to 5.7 meters and 1,300 kg, despite its common name, the long-finned pilot whale is actually a large species of dolphin. The same is true of orcas and several other small whales and it has a bulbous forehead and is black or dark grey in colour with light-grey or white markings on the throat and belly regions. This light grey patch found on the throat of pilot whales forms the shape of an anchor, some individuals have other distinct markings such as a light coloured area behind dorsal fin, known as a saddle patch, as well as an upwards sweeping stripe just behind the eye. The dorsal fin is thick and falcate in nature, and is located about a third of the way down the length of the animal. The common name of species is a reference to the pilot whales long. Being a toothed whale, pilot whales have a single blowhole and it can be challenging to tell male and female apart in the wild for many cetacean species. Long-finned pilot whales are no exception, though it was thought in the past that males had hooked dorsal fins while females did not, recent research on fin shape has shown that this is not a predictable way to distinguish between the sexes. The ranges of long-finned and short-finned pilot whales overlap in areas of the world. As the difference between them is mainly distinguished by the length of the fins and tooth counts, it is extremely hard to tell the two species apart in these areas. The long-finned pilot whale has more neocortical neurons than any mammal studied to date, long-finned pilot whales are very social in nature. They are usually seen in groups, which range in size from a couple of individuals to aggregations of over a thousand, however,20 to 150 individuals are more commonly observed

60.
Faroe Islands domestic animals
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The domestic animals of the Faroe Islands are a result of 1200 years of isolated breeding. As a result, many of the domestic animals are found nowhere else in the world. The Faroe pony is a small but strong pony and its height is between 115–125 centimetres. In the old days it was used as a horse, carrying heavy loads. In the early 1900, a lot of ponies were exported to be used as pit ponies, in the 1960s, there were 5-6 pure ponies left, now, with huge effort, there are 73 ponies. The Faroese cow is small, often black or piebald, and is used for milking, both sexes of the species have horns. The Faroe sheep is a small and hardy breed and it is one of the Northern European short-tailed sheep and has been on the islands for over 1000 years. The sheep is a part of Faroese culture - it is a part of the local cuisine, and might have given the islands their name, Føroyar. There used to be another sheep breed on the islands, the Lítla Dímun sheep or Dímunarseyðurin and it lived a feral existence on the island of Lítla Dímun, but all specimens of this breed were shot in the 19th century. The Faroese goose is a small goose probably brought to the islands during the settlement of Iceland and is probably the oldest form of goose in Europe. It can survive without supplementary feed, but most people give it some food during the winter, the Faroese duck is a small, hardy duck, when slaughtered only weighing 3 pounds

61.
Faroe pony
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The Faroe pony, Faeroes pony, or Faroese horse, is a small pony, with a height between 11.1 to 12.1 hands. Technically this animal is a due to its height. The Faroe pony is only to be seen on the Faroe Islands and is little known in other countries. The colors of the pony varies a lot, but are mainly chestnut, brown, black or speckled, with white also occurring in previous populations. It is known to be very an enduring, strong, friendly, adaptable, a fully grown Faroese pony weighs 250-300 kilograms. The wintercoat is very long, dense and water repellent, while the summercoat is shorthaired, th Faroese pony is mentioned in written sources from the 1600s. In the old days this pony breed was used to carry or haul heavy loads at farms, when it wasnt at work, it was released onto the mountains where it roamed freely. Today Faroese ponies are kept by hobby breeders and it is mostly used as a riding horse for children. The Faroe pony has been on the Faroe Islands for many hundreds of years, in 1880 more than 800 animals were registered on the Faroe Islands, but by the 1960s the population had been decimated to only five to six horses. One of the reasons was an extensive horse export from 1850 -1920, a conservation and breeding program was initiated by Leivur T. Hansen and in 1978 the organization Felagið Føroysk Ross was established, with huge efforts, the Faroe pony population has now increased to 70 animals which are declared genetically pure, with 14 male breeders and the aim is to maintain and develop the breed further. The Faroe pony has since been recognised as a unique breed

62.
Faroese general election, 2015
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General elections were held in the Faroe Islands on 1 September 2015. Elections for the Danish Folketing were held beforehand on 18 June, on 4 August 2015 the Løgting passed a motion that criticized Prime Minister Kaj Leo Johannesen and former Minister of the Interior Kári P. For some time not much happened, the Prime Minister refused to take any action, the speaker of the Løgting refused to assemble parliament, which had no scheduled meeting before 29 July 2015. On 29 July Johannesen gave his annual speech to the Løgting, ending it by calling general elections. A week later on 4 August, the Løgting assembled to discuss the Johannesens speech, all 33 members of the Løgting voted yes, including Højgaard. However, three Union Party MPs cast blank votes, including Deputy Chairman Bárður Nielsen, whilst Peoples Party chairman Jákup Mikkelsen voted for the motion, Johannesen maintains that he did not lie, but only gave incorrect information to the Løgting. The 33 members of the Løgting were elected by open list proportional representation in a nationwide constituency with an electoral threshold of 3. 03030%. Seats were allocated using to the dHondt method, the ruling centre-right coalition led by Johannesen was consistently behind in the polls, while the Social Democrats led by Aksel Johannesen were well ahead. However, polls closer to election day showed a tightening race, the opposition parties made a major comeback from the 2011 elections, with the Social Democratic Party and Republic gaining two and one seats respectively. Progress regained its seat, which it lost in 2011 when Janus Rein left the party. Despite a small reduction in their share, New Self-Government gained one seat. Of the 117 void votes,76 were blank and 41 invalid, there were 58 polling districts, of which 56 were towns and two were schools. Giljanes was one of the two polling places on the island of Vágar, while Fossanes is located on the Norðoyar. There were two polling places in the area, Tórshavn, which includes the suburbs of Hvítanes and Hoyvík. The Vágar region includes the neighbouring island Mykines and the Sandoy region includes Skúvoy, while the rest of Streymoy includes the places on the islets Nólsoy. List of members of the Løgting, 2015–19

Faroese general election, 2015
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All 33 seats in the Løgting 17 seats were needed for a majority
Faroese general election, 2015
Faroese general election, 2015
Faroese general election, 2015

63.
Folketing
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The Folketing, also known as the Danish Parliament in English, is the unicameral national parliament of the Kingdom of Denmark. Established in 1849, until 1953 the Folketing was the house of a bicameral parliament, called the Rigsdag. It meets in Christiansborg Palace, on the islet of Slotsholmen in central Copenhagen, the Folketing passes all laws, approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government. It is also responsible for adopting the states budgets and approving the states accounts, as set out in the Danish Constitution, the Folketing shares power with the reigning monarch. In practice, however, the role is limited to signing laws passed by the legislature. The Folketing consists of 179 representatives,175 from Denmark,2 from Greenland, general elections must be held every four years, but it is within the powers of the Prime Minister to ask the monarch to call for an election before the term has elapsed. On a vote of no confidence, the Folketing may force a single Minister or the government to resign. Members are democratically elected by proportional representation,135 by the DHondt method and 40 by the Sainte-Laguë method, the Danish political system has traditionally generated coalitions. Most post-war governments have been minority coalitions ruling with the support of non-government parties, the most recent general election took place on 18 June 2015 and the Folketing reconvened on 6 October. The first sitting of the house was attended by Queen Margrethe II, from 1849 to 1953 the Folketing was one of the two houses in the bicameral parliament known as the Rigsdag, the other house was known as the Landsting. Since both houses, in principle, had power, the terms upper house and lower house were not generally used. The difference between the houses was voter representation, the Folketing was elected by common vote among men and consisted mainly of independent farmers, traders, and merchants as well as the educated classes. From 1915 both men and women had the right of vote for both houses, and also the Landsting was elected by vote, although indirectly and with a higher age limit than for the Folketing. During the next decades, law-making mainly took place in the Folketing, in 1953, a revised constitution was adopted by popular vote. Among the changes was the elimination of the Landsting and the introduction of a unicameral parliament, Christiansborg Palace has been the domicile of parliament since 1849. The palace is located in the heart of Copenhagen, winning a seat in parliament requires only 2% of the vote. With such a low threshold, a large number of parties are represented in the chamber, making it all. No party has achieved this since 1901, all Danish governments since then have been coalitions or one-party minority governments

64.
Sandoy
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Sandoy is the first of the five southern islands that make up the Faroe chain, the fifth biggest of all the Faroe Islands, an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Denmark. It also refers to the region includes this island along with Skúvoy. As of 2011, the largest population center on the island is the village of Sandur with a population of 599, other settlements include Skarvanes, Skopun, Skálavík, Húsavík and Dalur. Sandoy gets its name from the beach at Sandur. It is the island with dunes. There are similarly named islands, Sanday in the Orkney Islands, Sanday in the Inner Hebrides, a proposal has been approved by the Faroese parliament to build a tunnel connecting Sandoy with the more populous Streymoy to the north. Construction is not intended to be completed until 2021, the island is considered the best island for agriculture due to its fertile sandy soil. The largest potato farm in the country is located on the island, and people who have gardening interests have generally an easier time getting plants to grow here. The island supports 6.878 sheep, lambs are not included, list of islands of the Faroe Islands Sandoyar travel guide from Wikivoyage The dictionary definition of Sandoy at Wiktionary Media related to Sandoy at Wikimedia Commons

Sandoy
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Sandur on the Island of Sandoy - view from the bay Sandsvágur in the Southeast
Sandoy
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Skarvanes
Sandoy
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The lake Sandsvatn is the largest on the island and the third largest in the Faroe Islands.
Sandoy
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Húsavík, Faroe Islands

65.
Denmark-Norway
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Denmark–Norway was an early modern multi-national and multi-lingual state consisting of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Norway, the Duchy of Schleswig, and the Duchy of Holstein. The state also claimed sovereignty over two historical peoples, Wends and Goths, in addition, the state included colonies, St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix, Ghana, Tharangambadi, Serampore, and Nicobar Islands. The states inhabitants were mainly Danes, Norwegians, and Germans, the states largest cities were Copenhagen, Altona, Bergen, Trondheim, and Christiania. In 1397, Denmark, Norway and Sweden established and formed the Kalmar Union, following Swedens departure in 1523, the union was effectively dissolved. From 1536/1537, Denmark and Norway formed a union that would eventually develop into the 1660 integrated state called Denmark–Norway. The union lasted until 1814, when the Treaty of Kiel decreed that Norway be ceded to Sweden, the term Kingdom of Denmark is sometimes used to include both countries in the period, since the political and economic power emanated from the Danish capital, Copenhagen. These terms cover the territories of the Oldenburgs as it was in 1460, excluding the ducal territories of Schleswig. The administration used two official languages, Danish and German, and for centuries both a Danish and German Chancery existed. The term Denmark–Norway reflects the historical and legal roots of the union and it is adopted from the Oldenburg dynastys official title. The kings always used the style King of Denmark and Norway, the Wends, Denmark and Norway, sometimes referred to as the Twin Realms of Denmark–Norway, had separate legal codes and currencies, and mostly separate governing institutions. Following the introduction of absolutism in 1660, the centralisation of government meant a concentration of institutions in Copenhagen, centralisation was supported in many parts of Norway, where the two-year attempt by Sweden to control Trøndelag resulted in massive losses and a catastrophic failure for the Swedes. This allowed Norway to further secure itself militarily for the future through closer ties with the capital Copenhagen, the term Sweden–Finland is sometimes, although with less justification, applied to the contemporary Swedish realm between 1521 and 1809. Finland was never a kingdom, and was completely integrated with Sweden. Throughout the time of Denmark–Norway, it continuously had possession over various overseas territories, at the earliest times this meant areas in Northern Europe and North America, for instance Estonia and the Norwegian possessions of Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland. From the 17th century, the kingdom acquired colonies in Africa, at its height the empire was about 2,655,564.76 km² Denmark–Norway maintained numerous colonies from the 17th to 19th centuries over various parts around India. Colonies included the town of Tranquebar and Serampore, the last towns it had control over were sold to the United Kingdom in 1845. Rights in the Nicobar Islands were sold in 1869, centred on the Virgin Islands, Denmark–Norway established the Danish West Indies. This colony was one of the longest lived of Denmark, until it was sold to the United States in 1917 and it became the U. S. Virgin Islands

Denmark-Norway
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Carta marina, an early map of the Nordic countries, made around end of Kalmar Union and start of Denmark–Norway
Denmark-Norway
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Flag
Denmark-Norway
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Christian IV of Denmark
Denmark-Norway
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Battle between the frigate HMS Tartar and Norwegian gunboats near Bergen in 1808.

66.
Counties of Denmark
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The Counties of Denmark were former subdivisions of metropolitan Denmark, used primarily for administrative regions, with each county having its own council with substantial powers. Originally there had been twenty-four counties, but the number was reduced to fourteen in 1970 - the number fluctuated slightly over the next three decades. In 2006 there were thirteen traditional counties as well as three municipalities with county status, on January 1,2007, the counties were abolished and replaced by five larger regions. On January 1,2007, these two municipalities lost their special status, greenland and the Faroe Islands are also part of the Danish Realm, but both enjoy internal autonomy. Both are largely self-governing, and each community sends two members to the Danish Parliament, the Faroe Islands obtained self-government in 1948, from 1816 to 1948 the islands had the status of a Danish county. The proposal also required the municipalities to merge reducing them from 271 to 98, with a minimum of 20,000 inhabitants in each municipality, although some exceptions were made to this rule. From 200725 municipalities have fewer than 30,000 inhabitants each, only the United Kingdom and Ireland have more populous entities at the lowest political administrative level. The reform was confirmed by the Danish Parliament on February 24,2005, the fourteen counties + the three first-level municipalities, Note, Ringkjøbing County officially used a different spelling from its capital city, Ringkøbing. Ertholmene east of Bornholm are not and have never been a part of a municipality or county or region, statistics Denmark calls them Christiansø and Frederiksø, named after the two inhabited islets. They are included in numbers for Denmark. Land area of Denmark, around 42394 square kilometers

Counties of Denmark

67.
Prefect
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Prefect is a magisterial title of varying definition, but which, basically, refers to the leader of an administrative area. A prefects office, department, or area of control is called a prefecture, the words prefect and prefecture are also used, more or less conventionally, to render analogous words in other languages, especially Romance languages. They did have authority in their prefecture such as controlling prisons. The Praetorian prefect began as the commander of a generals guard company in the field. From the Emperor Diocletians tetrarchy they became the administrators of the four Praetorian prefectures, Praefectus urbi, or praefectus urbanus, city prefect, in charge of the administration of Rome. Praefectus vigilum, commander of the Vigiles, Praefectus aerarii, nobles appointed guardians of the state treasury. Praefectus aerarii militaris, prefect of the military treasury Praefectus annonae, Praefectus alae, commander of a cavalry unit. Praefectus cohortis, commander of a cohort, Praefectus fabrum, officer in charge of fabri, i. e. well-trained engineers and artisans. Praefectus legionis agens vice legati, equestrian acting legionary commander, Praefectus orae maritimae, official in charge with the control and defense of an important sector of sea coast. Praefectus socium, Roman officer appointed to a function in an ala sociorum. For some auxiliary troops, specific titles could even refer to their peoples, less important provinces though were entrusted to prefects, military men who would otherwise only govern parts of larger provinces. The most famous example is Pontius Pilate, who governed Judaea at a time when it was administered as an annex of Syria, septimius Severus, after conquering Mesopotamia, introduced the same system there too. Praefectus urbi, a prefect of the era who guarded the city during the annual sacrifice of the Latin. His former title was custos urbi, especially in Medieval Latin, præfectus was used to refer to various officers—administrative, military, judicial, etc. —usually alongside a more precise term in the vernacular. The term is used by the Roman Catholic Church, which based much of its canon law terminology on Roman law, the Roman Curia has the nine Prefects of all the Congregations as well as the two of the Papal Household and of the Economic Affairs of the Holy See. The title also attaches to the heads of some Pontifical Council, who are titled president. For example, the president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue is also the prefect of the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims, traditionally these Curial officials are Cardinals, hence often called Cardinal-Prefect or Cardinal-President. There was a custom that those who were not cardinals when they were appointed were titled Pro-Prefect or Pro-President, then these officials would be appointed prefect or president after their elevation to the Sacred College

68.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan

69.
Subsidy
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A subsidy is a form of financial aid or support extended to an economic sector generally with the aim of promoting economic and social policy. Although commonly extended from government, the subsidy can relate to any type of support – for example from NGOs or as implicit subsidies. Subsidies come in forms including, direct and indirect. Furthermore, they can be broad or narrow, legal or illegal, ethical or unethical, the most common forms of subsidies are those to the producer or the consumer. Producer/production subsidies ensure producers are better off by either supplying market price support, direct support, consumer/consumption subsidies commonly reduce the price of goods and services to the consumer. For example, in the US at one time it was cheaper to buy gasoline than bottled water, whether subsidies are positive or negative is typically a normative judgment. As a form of intervention, subsidies are inherently contrary to the markets demands. However, they can also be used as tools of political, a production subsidy encourages suppliers to increase the output of a particular product by partially offsetting the production costs or losses. The objective of production subsidies is to expand production of a product more so than the market would promote. This type of subsidy is found in developed markets. Other examples of production include the assistance in the creation of a new firm, industry. A consumption subsidy is one that subsidises the behavior of consumers, for example, some governments offer lifeline rates for electricity, that is, the first increment of electricity each month is subsidised. An export subsidy is a support from the government for products that are exported, usha Haley and George Haley identified the subsidies to manufacturing industry provided by the Chinese Government and how they have altered trade patterns. Traditionally, economists have argued that subsidies benefit consumers but hurt the subsidizing countries, export subsidy is known for being abused. For example, some exporters substantially over declare the value of their goods so as to more from the export subsidy. Thus the trader benefits from the subsidy without creating real trade value to the economy. Export subsidy as such can become a self-defeating and disruptive policy, an employment subsidy serves as an incentive to businesses to provide more job opportunities to reduce the level of unemployment in the country or to encourage research and development. With an employment subsidy, the government provides assistance with wages, Another form of employment subsidy is the social security benefits

Subsidy
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Contents

70.
Danish nation
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Danes are the citizens of Denmark, most of whom speak Danish and consider themselves to be of Danish ethnicity. The first mention of Danes are from the 6th century in Jordanes Getica, by Procopius, the first mention of Danes within the Danish territory is on the Jelling Rune Stone which states how Harald Bluetooth converted the Danes to Christianity in the 10th century. Since the formulation of a Danish national identity in the 19th century, Danish national identity was built on a basis of peasant culture and Lutheran theology, theologian N. F. S. Grundtvig and his popular movement played a prominent part in the process. Today, the criterion for being considered a Dane is having Danish citizenship. Frankish annalists of the 8th century often refer to Danish kings, the Bobbio Orosius from the early 7th century, distinguishes between South Danes inhabiting Jutland and North Danes inhabiting the isles and the province of Scania. The first mention of Danes within the Danish territory is on the Jelling Rune Stone which mentions how Harald Bluetooth converted the Danes to Christianity in the 10th century. Between c.960 and the early 980s, Harald Bluetooth established a kingdom in the lands of the Danes, stretching from Jutland to Scania. Around the same time, he received a visit from a German missionary who, by surviving an ordeal by fire according to legend, the following years saw the Danish Viking expansion, which incorporated Norway and Northern England into the Danish kingdom. After the death of Canute the Great in 1035, England broke away from Danish control, canutes nephew Sweyn Estridson re-established strong royal Danish authority and built a good relationship with the archbishop of Bremen — at that time the Archbishop of all of Scandinavia. The Reformation, which originated in the German lands in the early 16th century from the ideas of Martin Luther, had a impact on Denmark. The Danish Reformation started in the mid-1520s, some Danes wanted access to the Bible in their own language. In 1524, Hans Mikkelsen and Christiern Pedersen translated the New Testament into Danish and those who had traveled to Wittenberg in Saxony and come under the influence of the teachings of Luther and his associates included Hans Tausen, a Danish monk in the Order of St John Hospitallers. The Dano-Norwegian Kingdom grew wealthy during the 16th century, largely because of the traffic through the Øresund. The Crown of Denmark could tax the traffic, because it controlled both sides of the Sound at the time, in the centuries after this loss of territory, the populations of the Scanian lands, who had previously been considered Danish, came to be fully integrated as Swedes. Later, in the early 19th century, Denmark suffered a defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark lost control over Norway, the political and economic defeat ironically sparked what is known as the Danish Golden Age during which a Danish national identity first came to be fully formed. The Danish liberal and national movements gained momentum in the 1830s, a new constitution emerged, separating the powers and granting the franchise to all adult males, as well as freedom of the press, religion, and association. The king became head of the executive branch, Danishness is the concept on which contemporary Danish national and ethnic identity is based. It is a set of values formed through the historic trajectory of the formation of the Danish nation, importantly, since its formulation, Danish identity has not been linked to a particular racial or biological heritage, as many other ethno-national identities have

Danish nation

71.
Treaties of the European Union
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The Treaties of the European Union are a set of international treaties between the European Union member states which sets out the EUs constitutional basis. They establish the various EU institutions together with their remit, procedures and objectives, the EU can only act within the competences granted to it through these treaties and amendment to the treaties requires the agreement and ratification of every single signatory. The treaties have been amended by other treaties over the 65 years since they were first signed. The consolidated version of the two treaties is regularly published by the European Commission. The two principal treaties on which the EU is based are the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. These main treaties have been altered by amending treaties at least once a decade since they came into force. Lisbon also made the Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding, though that is not a treaty per se, the troubled ratification of Lisbon has meant there is little climate for further reform in the next few years beyond accession treaties, which merely allow a new state to join. Following the preamble the treaty text is divided into six parts, Title 1, Common Provisions The first deals with common provisions. Article 1 establishes the European Union on the basis of the European Community, the member states share a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail. Article 3 then states the aims of the EU in six points, the first is simply to promote peace, European values and its citizens well-being. The second relates to free movement with external border controls are in place, point 3 deals with the internal market. Point 5 states the EU shall promote its values, contribute to eradicating poverty, observe human rights, the final sixth point states that the EU shall pursue these objectives by appropriate means according with its competences given in the treaties. Article 4 relates to member states sovereignty and obligations, Article 5 sets out the principles of conferral, subsidiarity and proportionality with respect to the limits of its powers. Article 6 binds the EU to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 7 deals with the suspension of a member state and article 8 deals with establishing close relations with neighbouring states. Title 2, Provisions on democratic principles Article 9 establishes the equality of national citizens, Article 10 declares that the EU is founded in representative democracy and that decisions must be taken as closely as possible to citizens. Article 12 gives national parliaments limited involvement in the legislative process and it obliges co-operation between these and limits their competencies to the powers within the treaties. Article 18 establishes the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Title 4, Provisions on enhanced cooperations Title 4 has only one article which allows a limited number of member states to co-operate within the EU if others are blocking integration in that field. Title 5, General provisions on the Unions external action and specific provisions on the Common Foreign, Article 21 deals with the principles that outline EU foreign policy, including compliance with the UN charter, promoting global trade, humanitarian support and global governance

Treaties of the European Union
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The European Constitution failed due to negative votes in two member states
Treaties of the European Union
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Front page of an EU document containing the consolidated treaties and documents which comprise the legal basis of the EU

72.
Schengen Agreement
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The Schengen Agreement is a treaty which led to the creation of Europes Schengen Area, in which internal border checks have largely been abolished. It was signed on 14 June 1985, near the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, in 1990, the Agreement was supplemented by the Schengen Convention which proposed the complete abolition of systematic internal border controls and a common visa policy. It currently consists of 26 European countries covering a population of over 400 million people, originally, the Schengen treaties and the rules adopted under them operated independently from the European Union. Several non-EU countries are included in the area, however, systematic identity controls were still in place at the border between most member states. The agreement was signed on the Princess Marie-Astrid boat on the river Moselle near the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, three of the signatories, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, had already abolished common border controls as part of the Benelux Economic Union. In 1990, the Agreement was supplemented by the Schengen Convention which proposed the abolition of border controls. It was this Convention that created the Schengen Area through the abolition of border controls between Schengen member states, common rules on visas, and police and judicial cooperation. In December 1996 two non-EU member states, Norway and Iceland, signed an agreement with the signatories of the Agreement to become part of the Schengen Area. While this agreement never came into force, both countries did become part of the Schengen Area after concluding similar agreements with the EU, the Schengen Convention itself was not open for signature by non-EU member states. In 2009, Switzerland finalised its official entry to the Schengen Area with the acceptance of an agreement by popular referendum in 2005. Now that the Schengen Agreement is part of the acquis communautaire, it has, for EU members, lost the status of a treaty, instead, amendments are made according to the legislative procedure of the EU under EU treaties. Ratification by the former agreement signatory states is not required for altering or repealing some or all of the former Schengen acquis, legal acts setting out the conditions for entry into the Schengen Area are now made by majority vote in the EUs legislative bodies. However, consultations with affected countries are conducted prior to the adoption of new legislation. In 2016, border controls were introduced in seven Schengen countries. This was a response to the European migrant crisis

73.
Nordic Passport Union
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Since 25 March 2001, all five states have also been within the Schengen Area. The Faroe Islands are part of the Nordic Passport Union but not the Schengen Area, while Greenland, however, Greenland has an open border with all Nordic countries, and allows Nordic citizens to enter, settle and work without requiring a passport or permits. Furthermore, as citizens of a Nordic country, those from Svalbard, Nordic citizens are generally treated like local citizens in all these countries, in particular for travel purposes. For Nordic citizens, no identity documentation is required to enter or reside in any Nordic country. However, identity documentation is still useful, as companies may require proof of identity for certain services, such as trains, airports, usually any valid proof of identity is accepted, such as a driver licence. The Nordic Passport Union was established in three stages, on 1 July 1954, the agreement was extended to allow citizens to reside and work in any of the four countries without a residence or work permit. Iceland joined the agreement on 1 December 1955, the treaty was extended to Iceland on 24 September 1965 and to the Faroe Islands on 1 January 1966. Greenland and Svalbard remain outside the passport union, in December 1996 the two non-EU member states Norway and Iceland signed an association agreement with the signatories of the Schengen Agreement to become part of the Schengen Area. While this agreement never came into force, both countries did become part of the Schengen Area after concluding similar agreements with the EU, the Schengen Convention itself was not open for signature by non-EU member states. From 25 March 2001, the Schengen acquis applied to the area of the Nordic Passport Union with the exception of the Faroe Islands, border checkpoints have been removed within the Schengen Area, in addition to those that had been abolished previously within the Nordic Passport Union. Before 2001, full customs checks were required for travel when travelling from Denmark to other Nordic countries. There was no border with Denmark before July 2000 when the Öresund Bridge was opened. Nordic citizens did not need to be in possession of a passport, for land and ferry travel into Denmark and between Sweden, Norway and Finland, there were much more relaxed customs and passport checks, and often no checks at all. It happened that Nordic citizens without a passport were not allowed to pass until a thorough identity investigation had been made, passengers travelling by public transport, such as train or air, were usually not interviewed by the customs control. Still laws give police and guards the right to demand an identity document at airports which is not enforced inside Nordic countries. In November 2015, Sweden introduced temporary border controls, and requirements for all airlines and ferries to check identity documents. From 4 January 2016, Sweden requires carriers to perform identity checks on the Danish side of the Denmark–Sweden border, for this a passport or a Nordic drivers license is needed. A national id card from EU countries can be used, the protocol concerning the abolition of passports for travel between Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway was signed on 14 July 1952, in Stockholm

74.
Schengen Area
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The Schengen Area is an area comprising 26 European states that have officially abolished passport and any other type of border control at their mutual borders. The area mostly functions as a country for international travel purposes. The area is named after the Schengen Agreement, States in the Schengen Area have eliminated border controls with other Schengen members and strengthened border controls with non-Schengen countries. Twenty-two of the twenty-eight European Union member states participate in the Schengen Area, three European microstates – Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City – can be considered de facto participants. The Schengen Area has a population of over 400 million people, as a result of the migration crisis ongoing as of early 2017, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden temporarily imposed controls on some or all of their borders with other Schengen states. Following the November 2015 Paris attacks and subsequent attacks in France, France declared a state of emergency, the Schengen Agreement was signed on 14 June 1985 by five of the ten EEC member states in the town of Schengen, Luxembourg. The Schengen Area was established separately from the European Economic Community, in 1990 the Agreement was supplemented by the Schengen Convention, which proposed the abolition of internal border controls and a common visa policy. The Agreements and the rules adopted under them were separate from the EC structures. As more EU member states signed the Schengen Agreement, consensus was reached on absorbing it into the procedures of the EU, the Agreement and its related conventions were incorporated into the mainstream of European Union law by the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997, which came into effect in 1999. A consequence of the Agreement being part of European law is that any amendment and regulation is made within its processes, in which the non-EU members are not participants. The UK and Ireland have maintained a Common Travel Area since 1923, but beyond this the UK could not accept abolishing border controls, and were given a full opt-out from the area. While not signing the Schengen Treaty, Ireland has always looked more favourably on joining but has not done so to maintain the CTA, the Nordic members required Norway and Iceland to be included, which was accepted, and so a consensus could be reached. The Schengen Area consists of 26 states, including four which are not members of the European Union, two of the non-EU members, Iceland and Norway, are part of the Nordic Passport Union and are officially classified as states associated with the Schengen activities of the EU. Switzerland was subsequently allowed to participate in the manner in 2008. Liechtenstein joined the Schengen Area on 19 December 2011, de facto, the Schengen Area also includes three European micro-states – Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican City – that maintain open or semi-open borders with other Schengen member countries. Two EU members – Ireland and the United Kingdom – negotiated opt-outs from Schengen, the remaining four EU member states – Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Romania – are obliged to eventually join the Schengen Area. However, before implementing the Schengen rules, each state must have its preparedness assessed in four areas, air borders, visas, police cooperation. This evaluation process involves a questionnaire and visits by EU experts to selected institutions, the only land borders with border controls between EU/EEA members, are those of Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania, and the one at Gibraltar and those at the Channel Tunnel

Schengen Area
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A typical Schengen border crossing has no border control post and only a common EU-state sign displaying the name of the country being entered, as here between Germany and Austria. The larger blue sign announces entry to the Federal Republic of Germany in German, the smaller white sign announces entry into the German state of Bavaria.
Schengen Area
Schengen Area
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Passport control at an external Schengen border in Finland
Schengen Area
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Facilitated Rail Transit Document

75.
Association football
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Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries and dependencies making it the worlds most popular sport, the game is played on a rectangular field with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to score by getting the ball into the opposing goal, players are not allowed to touch the ball with their hands or arms while it is in play, unless they are goalkeepers. Other players mainly use their feet to strike or pass the ball, the team that scores the most goals by the end of the match wins. If the score is level at the end of the game, the Laws of the Game were originally codified in England by The Football Association in 1863. Association football is governed internationally by the International Federation of Association Football, the first written reference to the inflated ball used in the game was in the mid-14th century, Þe heued fro þe body went, Als it were a foteballe. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the word soccer was split off in 1863, according to Partha Mazumdar, the term soccer originated in England, first appearing in the 1880s as an Oxford -er abbreviation of the word association. Within the English-speaking world, association football is now usually called football in the United Kingdom and mainly soccer in Canada and the United States. People in Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand use either or both terms, although national associations in Australia and New Zealand now primarily use football for the formal name. According to FIFA, the Chinese competitive game cuju is the earliest form of football for which there is scientific evidence, cuju players could use any part of the body apart from hands and the intent was kicking a ball through an opening into a net. It was remarkably similar to football, though similarities to rugby occurred. During the Han Dynasty, cuju games were standardised and rules were established, phaininda and episkyros were Greek ball games. An image of an episkyros player depicted in low relief on a vase at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens appears on the UEFA European Championship Cup, athenaeus, writing in 228 AD, referenced the Roman ball game harpastum. Phaininda, episkyros and harpastum were played involving hands and violence and they all appear to have resembled rugby football, wrestling and volleyball more than what is recognizable as modern football. As with pre-codified mob football, the antecedent of all football codes. Non-competitive games included kemari in Japan, chuk-guk in Korea and woggabaliri in Australia, Association football in itself does not have a classical history. Notwithstanding any similarities to other games played around the world FIFA have recognised that no historical connection exists with any game played in antiquity outside Europe. The modern rules of football are based on the mid-19th century efforts to standardise the widely varying forms of football played in the public schools of England

Association football
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The attacking player (No. 10) attempts to kick the ball beyond the opposing team's goalkeeper and between the goalposts and beneath the crossbar to score a goal
Association football
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Children playing cuju in Song dynasty China
Association football
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Ebenezer Cobb Morley, who is regarded as the "father of football"
Association football
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A women's international match between the United States and Germany

76.
FINA
–
FINA or Fédération internationale de natation is the international federation recognized by the International Olympic Committee for administering international competition in water sports. It is one of several international federations which administer a given sport/discipline for the IOC and/or international community and it is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. FINA currently oversees competition in five sports, swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, water polo. Beginning in 2013, high diving emerged as a discipline within FINA, FINA also oversees Masters competition in its disciplines. On 24 July 2009, Julio Maglione of Uruguay was elected FINA President and it is not necessarily the number of members in the continental association. The FINA membership meets every four years, usually coinciding with the World Championships, there are two types of normal or ordinary congress, General and Technical. FINA’s highest authority is the General Congress, any technical issues concerning FINA’s five aquatic disciplines are decided by the Technical Congress. Each Congress has two voting members from each Member federation, plus the following non-voting members, the 22 members of the Bureau, the Honorary Life President, the Technical Congress has the following additional non-voting members, all members from the respective Technical Committees. Extraordinary Congress are also called time to time, to deal with a specific topic or area of concern. All Congress meetings are chaired by FINAs president and it is the Bureau that elects the FINA Executive Officers. Various committees and commission also help with the oversight of individual disciplines, each presidential term is four years, beginning and concluding with the year following the Summer Olympics. FINA organizes one championship involving each of the five disciplines it oversees, as well championships, the biggest FINA event is the biennial World Aquatics Championships, currently held every odd year. It features competitions in all five aquatic disciplines, prior to 2000, the event was held every 4 years, in the even year between Olympic Games. Bi-annual event, swum in 25-meter length pool, Water Polo, Water Polo World Leagues. Diving, Diving World Series Open Water, World Open Water Swimming Championships, High Diving, High Diving World Cup Masters, World Masters Championships. This championships features all 5 disciplines, grand Prix, Annual race/competition series of multiple events in open water. Junior Worlds, A world-level championships restricted to a younger age population, held in swimming, water polo, diving, and synchronized swimming

77.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians

78.
Kaj Leo Johannesen
–
Kaj Leo Holm Johannesen is a Faroese politician. He was the minister of the Faroe Islands, representing the Faroese Unionist Party. Johannesen is also an international football player, he was goalkeeper for the Faroe Islands national football team. In the Faroese parliamentary elections, held on 29 October 2011 Kaj Leo Johannesen received 1979 personal votes and this is the largest number of personal votes ever given to a Faroese parliament candidate. He held this record until the general election 2015, when Aksel V. Johannesen received 2405 personal votes, at the same election Kaj Leo Johannesen received 603 personal votes. Kaj Leo Johannesen was a member of the City Council of Tórshavn 1997-2000, Kaj Leo Johannesen was a football goalkeeper and received 4 full international caps for the Faroes. He was unused substitute in 18 FIFA registered international matches in the period between 1989 and 1995, Kaj Leo Johannesen played as first choice goalkeeper for one of the strongest Faroese clubs, HB Tórshavn between 1984 and 1998, and made some comebacks in later years. He became champion of the Faroese League in 1988,1990 and 1998, Kaj Leo Johannesen is also a former handball player. He played 163 matches for Kyndil and scored 625 goals for the club, logting. fo, The Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands Football. fo Torshavn. fo HB. fo Kyndil. fo Profile on FaroeSoccer. com

Kaj Leo Johannesen
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Kaj Leo Johannesen

79.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality

80.
Demographics of the Faroe Islands
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The vast majority of the population are ethnic Faroese, of North Germanic descent. Ethnic Faroese are, in terms, among the most homogenous groups ever found. Recent DNA analysis have revealed that Y chromosomes, tracing male descent, are 87% Scandinavian, the studies show that mitochondrial DNA, tracing female descent, is 84% Scottish / Irish. Of the approximately 48,000 inhabitants of the Faroe Islands, 98% are Danish realm citizens, meaning Faroese, Danish, or Greenlandic. By birthplace one can derive the following origins of the inhabitants, born on the Faroes 91. 7%, in Denmark 5. 8%, and in Greenland 0. 3%. The largest group of foreigners are Icelanders comprising 0. 4% of the population, followed by Norwegians and Poles, altogether, on the Faroe Islands there are people from 77 different nationalities. The Faroe Islands have the highest rate of adoption in the world, Faroese is spoken in the entire country as a first language. It is not possible to say exactly how many people speak the Faroese language. The 2011 census, called Manntal, shows that 10% were not born in the Faroe Islands,6. 5% of people older than 15 did not speak Faroese as their mother tongue. 33 persons said that they did not understand Faroese at all, according to the 2011 census,45361 Faroese people spoke Faroese as their first language and 1546 spoke Danish as their first language. The Faroese language is one of the smallest of the Germanic languages and it is most similar to Icelandic and Norwegian. In the twentieth century Faroese became the language and since the Faroes are a part of the Danish realm Danish is taught in schools as a compulsory second language. Faroese language policy provides for the creation of new terms in Faroese suitable for modern life. The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated

Demographics of the Faroe Islands
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Faroese student in national costume.

81.
Faroe Islanders
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Faroese people are a Germanic ethnic group and nation native to the Faroe Islands. The Faroese are of mixed Norse and Gaelic origins, about 21,000 Faroese live in neighbouring countries, particularly in Denmark, Iceland and Norway. Most Faroese are citizens of the Kingdom of Denmark, in which, the Faroese language is one of the North Germanic languages and is closely related to Icelandic and to western Norwegian varieties. The first known colonists were Gaelic hermits and monks who arrived in the 6th century, later from around 650 the Norse-Gaels came and brought Norse culture and language to the islands. Little is known about this period, thus giving room for speculation, a single source mentions early settlement, the Icelandic Færeyinga saga. It was written sometime around 1200, and explains events taking place approximately 300 years prior, according to the saga, many Norsemen objected to the Norwegian kings unification politics and thus fled to other countries, including the newfound places in the west. Historians have understood since the time of the Færeyinga saga that the Viking Grímur Kamban was the first settler in the Faroes, the Norwegians must have known about the isles before leaving Norway. If Grímur Kamban had settled some time earlier, this could explain the Norwegians knowing about them, another, more logical explanation might be that the Norwegians came to know about the islands by the Gaels of Scotland and Ireland. While Grímur is an Old Norse first name, Kamban indicates a Celtic origin, thus he could have been a man from Ireland, Scotland or Isle of Man, where the Vikings already had settlements. Some place names from the oldest settlements on the Faroes suggest that some of the settlers came from the Scottish islands. Recent DNA analyses have revealed that Y chromosomes, tracing male descent, are 87% Scandinavian, the studies show that mitochondrial DNA, tracing female descent, is 84% Celtic. List of Faroese people Demographics of the Faroe Islands Culture of the Faroe Islands Flag of the Faroe Islands Faroese Dane

82.
Norsemen
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Norsemen are the group of people who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language between the 8th and 11th centuries. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages, Norseman means man from the North and applied primarily to Old Norse-speaking tribes living in southern and central Scandinavia. In history, Norse or Norseman could be any person from Scandinavia, even though Norway, Denmark, in some other historical references, the term may also refer to the East Norse, meaning mainly Danes and Swedes, for instance, Cnuts Empire and Swedes adventures East. In the early Medieval period, as today, Vikings was a term for attacking Norsemen, especially in connection with raids and monastic plundering by Norsemen in the British Isles. The Norse were also known as Ascomanni, ashmen, by the Germans, Lochlanach by the Gaels, the Gaelic terms Finn-Gall, Dubh-Gall and Gall Goidel were used for the people of Norse descent in Ireland and Scotland, who assimilated into the Gaelic culture. Dubliners called them Ostmen, or East-people, and the name Oxmanstown comes from one of their settlements, they were known as Lochlannaigh. However, British conceptions of the Vikings origins were not quite correct and those who plundered Britain lived in what is today Denmark, Scania, the western coast of Sweden and Norway and along the Swedish Baltic coast up to around the 60th latitude and Lake Mälaren. They also settled on the island of Gotland, the border between the Norsemen and more southerly Germanic tribes, the Danevirke, today is located about 50 kilometres south of the Danish-German border. The southernmost living Vikings lived no further north than Newcastle upon Tyne, archaeologists and historians of today believe that these Scandinavian settlements in the Slavic lands formed the names of the countries of Russia and Belarus. The Slavs and the Byzantines also called them Varangians, and the Scandinavian bodyguards of the Byzantine emperors were known as the Varangian Guard. In the Old Norse language, the term norrœnir menn, was used correspondingly to the modern English name Norsemen, referring to Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, Faroe Islanders, Icelanders, etc. The modern people of Norway, Sweden and Denmark never identify themselves as skandinaver, as they are Norwegians, Swedes, the Vikings were simply people partaking in the raid. On occasions Finland is also mentioned as a Scandinavian country, Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands are also geographically separate from the Scandinavian peninsula. The term Nordic countries is used to encompass the Scandinavian countries, Iceland, Greenland

83.
Celts (modern)
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A modern Celtic identity emerged in Western Europe following the identification of the native peoples of the Atlantic fringe as Celts by Edward Lhuyd in the 18th century. Lhuyd and others equated the Celts described by Greco-Roman writers with the peoples of France, Great Britain. The Irish and ancient British languages were thus Celtic languages, the descendants of these languages were the Brittonic and Gaelic languages. These peoples were therefore modern Celts, attempts were made to link their distinctive cultures to those of the Ancient Celtic people. The concept of modern Celtic identity evolved during the course of the 19th-century into the Celtic Revival, there were also significant Welsh, Scottish and Breton nationalist movements, giving rise to the concept of Celtic nations. The Celtic revival also led to the emergence of musical and artistic styles identified as Celtic, Music typically drew on folk traditions within the Celtic nations. Art drew on decorative styles associated with the ancient Celts and with early medieval Celtic Christianity, cultural events to promote inter-Celtic cultural exchange also emerged. In the late 20th century a number of scholars criticised the idea of modern Celtic identity, sometimes also arguing that there never was a common Celtic culture, since the Enlightenment, the term Celtic has been applied to a wide variety of peoples and cultural traits present and past. Today, Celtic is often used to people of the Celtic nations. Except for the Bretons, all groups mentioned have been subject to strong Anglicisation since the Early Modern period, by the same token, the Bretons have been subject to strong Frenchification since the Early Modern period, and can similarly be described as participating in a Franco-Celtic macro-culture. Less common is the assumption of Celticity for European cultures deriving from Continental Celtic roots and these were either Romanised or Germanised much earlier, before the Early Middle Ages. Nevertheless, Celtic origins are many times implied for continental groups such as the Asturians, Galicians, Portuguese, French, Swiss, the names of Belgium and the Aquitaine hark back to Gallia Belgica and Gallia Aquitania, respectively, in turn named for the Belgae and the Aquitani. The Latin name of the Swiss Confederacy, Confoederatio Helvetica, harks back to the Helvetii, the name of Galicia to the Gallaeci, celt has been adopted as a label of self-identification by a variety of peoples at different times. Celticity can refer to the links between them. During the 19th century, French nationalists gave a privileged significance to their descent from the Gauls, the struggles of Vercingetorix were portrayed as a forerunner of the 19th-century struggles in defence of French nationalism, including the wars of both Napoleons. Basic French history textbooks emphasised the ways in which Gauls could be seen as an example of cultural assimilation, in the late Middle Ages, some French writers believed that their language was primarily Celtic, rather than Latin. At the same time, there was also a tendency to play up alternative heritages in the British Isles at certain times. For example, in the Isle of Man, in the Victorian era, the Viking heritage was emphasised and this image coloured not only the English perception of their neighbours on the so-called Celtic fringe, but also Irish nationalism and its analogues in the other Celtic-speaking countries

84.
Mitochondrial DNA
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Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate. Mitochondrial DNA is only a portion of the DNA in a eukaryotic cell, most of the DNA can be found in the cell nucleus and, in plants and algae. In humans, the 16,569 base pairs of mitochondrial DNA encode for only 37 genes, human mitochondrial DNA was the first significant part of the human genome to be sequenced. In most species, including humans, mtDNA is inherited solely from the mother, since animal mtDNA evolves faster than nuclear genetic markers, it represents a mainstay of phylogenetics and evolutionary biology. It also permits an examination of the relatedness of populations, and so has become important in anthropology and this theory is called the endosymbiotic theory. Each mitochondrion is estimated to contain 2–10 mtDNA copies, the reasons why mitochondria have retained some genes are debated. Recent analysis of a range of mtDNA genomes suggests that both these features may dictate mitochondrial gene retention. In most multicellular organisms, mtDNA is inherited from the mother, mechanisms for this include simple dilution, degradation of sperm mtDNA in the male genital tract, in the fertilized egg, and, at least in a few organisms, failure of sperm mtDNA to enter the egg. Whatever the mechanism, this single parent pattern of inheritance is found in most animals, most plants. In sexual reproduction, mitochondria are inherited exclusively from the mother. Also, most mitochondria are present at the base of the sperms tail, in 1999 it was reported that paternal sperm mitochondria are marked with ubiquitin to select them for later destruction inside the embryo. Some in vitro techniques, particularly injecting a sperm into an oocyte. The fact that mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited enables researchers to trace maternal lineage far back in time. This is usually accomplished on human mitochondrial DNA by sequencing the hypervariable control regions, hVR1, for example, consists of about 440 base pairs. These 440 base pairs are then compared to the regions of other individuals to determine maternal lineage. Most often, the comparison is made to the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence, vilà et al. have published studies tracing the matrilineal descent of domestic dogs to wolves. The concept of the Mitochondrial Eve is based on the type of analysis. MtDNA is highly conserved, and its relatively slow mutation rates make it useful for studying the evolutionary relationships—phylogeny—of organisms, biologists can determine and then compare mtDNA sequences among different species and use the comparisons to build an evolutionary tree for the species examined

85.
Anker Eli Petersen
–
Anker Eli Petersen is a Faroese writer and artist. He is most known for his many Faroe Islands postage stamp designs under the name Anker Eli, many of his stamps depict scenes from Norse mythology, Christianity, or interpretations of other Faroese authors or poets. He is also designing the Postverk Føroya web site, that become a portal about the Faroes. As a writer, he translates texts from Old Norse, and writes childrens carols, hildarheygur. dk Anker Eli Petersens website about Nordic folklore Tjatsi. fo Postverk Føroyas website about Faroese folklore

Anker Eli Petersen
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Anker Eli Petersen

86.
Irish people
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The Irish people are a nation and ethnic group native to the island of Ireland, who share a common Irish ancestry, identity and culture. Ireland has been inhabited for about 9,000 years according to archaeological studies, for most of Irelands recorded history, the Irish have been primarily a Gaelic people. Today, Ireland is made up of the Republic of Ireland, the people of Northern Ireland hold various national identities, including Irish, Northern Irish, British, or some combination thereof. The Irish have their own customs, language, music, dance, sports, cuisine, although Irish was their main language in the past, today the huge majority of Irish people speak English as their first language. Historically, the Irish nation was made up of kin groups or clans, there have been many notable Irish people throughout history. After Irelands conversion to Christianity, Irish missionaries and scholars exerted great influence on Western Europe, the 6th-century Irish monk and missionary Columbanus is regarded as one of the fathers of Europe, followed by saints Cillian and Fergal. The scientist Robert Boyle is considered the father of chemistry, famous Irish writers include Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Bram Stoker and James Joyce, notable Irish explorers include Brendan the Navigator, Robert McClure, Ernest Shackleton and Tom Crean. By some accounts, the first European child born in North America had Irish descent on both sides, many presidents of the United States have had some Irish ancestry. The population of Ireland is about 6.3 million, but it is estimated that 50 to 80 million people around the world have Irish forebears, historically, emigration from Ireland has been the result of conflict, famine and economic issues. People of Irish descent are mainly in English-speaking countries, especially the United Kingdom. There are also significant numbers in Argentina, Mexico and New Zealand, the United States has the most people of Irish descent, while in Australia those of Irish descent are a higher percentage of the population than in any other country. Many Icelanders have Irish and Scottish Gaelic forebears, in its summary of their article Who were the Celts. The National Museum Wales notes It is possible that genetic studies of ancient. However, early studies have, so far, tended to produce implausible conclusions from very small numbers of people and using outdated assumptions about linguistics, nineteenth century anthropology studied the physical characteristics of Irish people in minute detail. During the past 10,000 years of inhabitation, Ireland has witnessed some different peoples arrive on its shores, the ancient peoples of Ireland—such as the creators of the Céide Fields and Newgrange—are almost unknown. Neither their languages nor terms they used to describe themselves have survived, as late as the middle centuries of the 1st millennium the inhabitants of Ireland did not appear to have a collective name for themselves. Ireland itself was known by a number of different names, including Banba, Fódla, Ériu by the islanders, Iouerne and Hiverne to the Greeks, other Latin names for people from Ireland in Classic and Mediaeval sources include Attacotti and Gael

87.
V. U. Hammershaimb
–
Hammershaimb was born in Sandavágur on the island of Vágar in the Faroe Islands. He was a Lutheran parish priest in Kvívík and a dean in Nes, on the Faroese island of Eysturoy. In addition to his contributions to the standard of Faroese. In 1854, he published a grammar of Faroese, at one point, the language spoken in the Faroe Islands was Old West Norse, which Norwegian settlers had brought with them. Between the 9th and the 15th centuries, a distinct Faroese language evolved and it would have been closely related to the Norn language of Orkney and Shetland. However, for some 300 years until the 19th century, under the kingdom of Denmark–Norway, Danish was the language of religion, education. Hammershaimb created his spelling system for Faroese in 1846 and it was etymological, with the vowels based on written Icelandic, rather than phonetically descriptive For instance, the letter Eth has no phonemes attached to it. Hammershaimbs orthography met with opposition for its complexity. A new, national literature in Faroese became possible only after the language’s orthography was normalized. Its development was promoted by nationalist agitation, which hastened the restoration of the Faroese Parliament in 1852, during the late 19th century modern Faroese literature began to appear and the first Faroese newspaper, Føringatíðindi, appeared in 1890. Faroese literature came into its own after the turn of the 20th century, after World War II, Faroese became the official language of the Faroe Islands. Færøiske Sagn and Bemerkninger med Hensyn til den Færøiske Udtale, annaler for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie 1846, pp. 358–365. Copenhagen, Berlings,1851,1855 Færøisk Sproglære, annaler for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie 1854 Færøsk Anthologi. Volume 1 Tekst samt historisk og grammatisk Indledning, volume 2 Ordsamling og Register, ed. Jakob Jakobsen. Samfund til Udgivelse af gammel nordisk Litteratur 15, copenhagen, Munksgaard,1964 Færøsk Anthologi I by V. U. Hammershaimb, online at archive. org Færøsk Anthologi II by V. U, hammershaimb, online at archive. org Færöiske Kvæder, ed. V. U. Hammershaimb, online at GoogleBooks Færøsk Anthologi by V. U

88.
Icelandic language
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Icelandic /aɪsˈlændɪk/ is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. It is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages, historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the colonisation of the Americas. Icelandic, Faroese, Norn, and Western Norwegian formerly constituted West Nordic, Danish, Eastern Norwegian, modern Norwegian Bokmål is influenced by both groups, leading the Nordic languages to be divided into mainland Scandinavian languages and Insular Nordic. Most Western European languages have reduced levels of inflection, particularly noun declension. In contrast, Icelandic retains a four-case synthetic grammar comparable to, Icelandic is distinguished by a wide assortment of irregular declensions. Icelandic also has many instances of oblique cases without any governing word, for example, many of the various Latin ablatives have a corresponding Icelandic dative. The vast majority of Icelandic speakers—about 320, 000—live in Iceland, more than 8,000 Icelandic speakers live in Denmark, of whom approximately 3,000 are students. The language is spoken by some 5,000 people in the United States. Notably in the province of Manitoba, while 97% of the population of Iceland consider Icelandic their mother tongue, the language is in decline in some communities outside Iceland, particularly in Canada. Icelandic speakers outside Iceland represent recent emigration in almost all cases except Gimli, Manitoba, the state-funded Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies serves as a centre for preserving the medieval Icelandic manuscripts and studying the language and its literature. Since 1995, on 16 November each year, the birthday of 19th-century poet Jónas Hallgrímsson is celebrated as Icelandic Language Day, the oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100 AD. Much of the texts are based on poetry and laws traditionally preserved orally, the most famous of the texts, which were written in Iceland from the 12th century onward, are the Icelandic Sagas. They comprise the historical works and the eddaic poems, the language of the sagas is Old Icelandic, a western dialect of Old Norse. Danish rule of Iceland from 1380 to 1918 had little effect on the evolution of Icelandic, though more archaic than the other living Germanic languages, Icelandic changed markedly in pronunciation from the 12th to the 16th century, especially in vowels. The modern Icelandic alphabet has developed from an established in the 19th century. The later Rasmus Rask standard was a re-creation of the old treatise, with changes to fit concurrent Germanic conventions. Various archaic features, as the letter ð, had not been used much in later centuries, rasks standard constituted a major change in practice. Later 20th-century changes include the use of é instead of je, apart from the addition of new vocabulary, written Icelandic has not changed substantially since the 11th century, when the first texts were written on vellum

Icelandic language
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A page from the Landnámabók
Icelandic language
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regions where Icelandic is the language of the majority
Icelandic language
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Photograph taken from page 206 of Colloquial Icelandic.
Icelandic language
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Eyjafjallajökull, one of the smaller ice caps of Iceland, situated to the north of Skógar and to the west of Mýrdalsjökull, is Icelandic for "glacier of Eyjafjöll"

89.
Norwegian language
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Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken mainly in Norway, where it is the official language. Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as extinct languages. Faroese and Icelandic are hardly mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them, as established by law and governmental policy, the two official forms of written Norwegian are Bokmål and Nynorsk. The official Norwegian Language Council is responsible for regulating the two forms, and recommends the terms Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk in English. Two other written forms without official status also exist, one and it is regulated by the unofficial Norwegian Academy, which translates the name as Standard Norwegian. Nynorsk and Bokmål provide standards for how to write Norwegian, no standard of spoken Norwegian is officially sanctioned, and most Norwegians speak their own dialects in all circumstances. Thus, unlike in other countries, the use of any Norwegian dialect. Outside Eastern Norway, this variation is not used. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism, rural versus urban discourse, historically, Bokmål is a Norwegianised variety of Danish, while Nynorsk is a language form based on Norwegian dialects and puristic opposition to Danish. The unofficial form known as Riksmål is considered more conservative than Bokmål, Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk. A2005 poll indicates that 86. 3% use primarily Bokmål as their written language,5. 5% use both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and 7. 5% use primarily Nynorsk. Thus, 13% are frequently writing Nynorsk, though the majority speak dialects that resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål. Broadly speaking, Nynorsk writing is widespread in western Norway, though not in major urban areas, examples are Setesdal, the western part of Telemark county and several municipalities in Hallingdal, Valdres, and Gudbrandsdalen. It is little used elsewhere, but 30–40 years ago, it also had strongholds in rural parts of Trøndelag. Today, not only is Nynorsk the official language of four of the 19 Norwegian counties, NRK, the Norwegian broadcasting corporation, broadcasts in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and all governmental agencies are required to support both written languages. Bokmål is used in 92% of all publications, and Nynorsk in 8%

Norwegian language
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Norwegian ambulances changed their markings in 2005. This is the old appearance, with the Norwegian ambulanse, "Ambulance."
Norwegian language
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Old West Norse dialect

90.
Western Norway
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Western Norway is the region along the Atlantic coast of southern Norway. It consists of the counties Rogaland, Hordaland, Sogn og Fjordane, the region has a population of approximately 1.3 million people. The largest city is Bergen and the second-largest is Stavanger, historically the regions of Agder, Vest-Telemark, Hallingdal, Valdres and northern parts of Gudbrandsdal have been included in Western Norway. Western Norway, as well as parts of historical regions of Norway, shares a common history with Denmark. For example, the Icelandic horse is a relative of the Fjord horse. In early Norse times, people from Western Norway became settlers at the Western Isles in the Northern Atlantic, so that the Orkneys, Shetland, during the Viking age settlements were made at the Hebrides, Man and Ireland proper. In early modern time, Western Norway has had much emigration to the United States, Canada and this applies particularly to the US states of Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Montana, and South Dakota. The Icelandic and Faroese people, and many people in the British Isles, are descendants of Norsemen, on the other hand, thousands of Western Norwegians are descendants of Dutch and German traders who arrived in the 16th and the 17th centuries, especially in Bergen. Western Norway has the lowest unemployment rates, lowest crime rates, smallest public sector, fewest people on welfare and it is generally regarded as Norways most functional region. Vestlandet is also the chosen for a future administrative region consisting of two of the four counties, viz. Hordaland and Sogn og Fjordane. The two counties will be re-merged after having split in 1763. Norways history begins on the west coast, particularly in Rogaland, excavations and rock art tells us that it was in Rogaland that the first humans settled in Norway, when the ice retreated after the last ice age ca.10,000 years ago. There are many artifacts from the Stone Age in Rogaland, the preliminary oldest traces of humans are found in a settlement on Galta, Rennesøy, near the ferry terminal Mortavika and Vista on Randaberg. In the beginning there has been sure short visits by people from the south who hunted along the coast and it is thought that people came from Doggerland, the North Sea land area between Denmark and England, which disappeared when the ice retreated and sea levels rose. The people who lived there must now find a new land, some retreated south again, while a few passed the Norwegian Trench in its hunt for deer and the new country. The region includes most of the scope of the old Gulating and these were Sunnmørafylke, Firda County, Sygna County, Hordafylke, Rygjafylke and Egdafylke. Before the millennium, iron was introduced and used in agriculture, in the same period, the kings’ power increased, and large tax claims caused many to seek freedom and fortune abroad. Many emigrated, and looting became a source of income

91.
Celtic Christianity
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Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages. Scholars now reject the notion, but note that there were certain traditions. These include a system for determining the dating of Easter, a style of monastic tonsure, a unique system of penance. Additionally, there were other practices that developed in parts of Britain or Ireland. The term therefore denotes regional practices among the churches and their associates. The term Celtic Church is deprecated by many historians as it implies a unified, others prefer the term Insular Christianity. As Patrick Wormald explained, One of the common misconceptions is that there was a Roman Church to which the Celtic was nationally opposed, in German, the term Iroschottisch is used, with Lutz von Padberg placing the same caveat about a supposed dichotomy between Irish-Scottish and Roman Christianity. Nonetheless, some distinctive traditions developed and spread to both Ireland and Great Britain, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries. Some elements may have introduced to Ireland by the Briton St. Patrick. The histories of the Irish, Welsh, Scots, Breton, Cornish, later interest in the subject has led to a series of Celtic Christian revival movements, which have shaped popular perceptions of the Celts and their religious practices. Celtic Christianity has been conceived of in different ways at different times, One particularly prominent feature ascribed to Celtic Christianity is that it is supposedly inherently distinct from – and generally opposed to – the Catholic Church. Others have been content to speak of Celtic Christianity as consisting of certain traditions, however, modern scholars have identified problems with all of these claims, and find the term Celtic Christianity problematic in and of itself. The idea of a Celtic Church is roundly rejected by modern scholars due to the lack of substantiating evidence, indeed, there were distinct Irish and British church traditions, each with their own practices, and there was significant local variation even within the individual Irish and British spheres. While there were some known to have been common to both the Irish and British churches, these were relatively few. Even these commonalities did not exist due to the Celticity of the regions, additionally, the Christians of Ireland and Britain were not anti-Roman, the authority of Rome and the papacy were venerated as strongly in Celtic areas as they were in any other region of Europe. Caitlin Corning further notes that the Irish and British were no more pro-women, pro-environment, Corning notes that scholars have identified three major strands of thought that have influenced the popular conceptions of Celtic Christianity. The first arose in the English Reformation, when the Church of England declared itself separate from papal authority, Protestant writers of this time popularised the idea of an indigenous British Christianity that opposed the foreign Roman church and was purer in thought. The English church, they claimed, was not forming a new institution, ideas of Celtic Christianity were further influenced by the Romantic movement of the 18th century, in particular Romantic notions of the noble savage and the intrinsic qualities of the Celtic race

Celtic Christianity
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A Celtic Cross in Knock, Ireland.
Celtic Christianity
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St Columba at the gate of King Bridei 's fortress
Celtic Christianity
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St. Patrick
Celtic Christianity
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The "Roman" tonsure, in the shape of a crown, differing from the Irish tradition, which is unclear but involved shaving the hair from ear to ear in some fashion

92.
Church of Denmark
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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark or National Church, sometimes called Church of Denmark, is the established, state-supported church in Denmark. The reigning monarch is the secular authority in the church. As of 1 January 2017,75. 9% of the population of Denmark are members, Christianity was introduced to Denmark in the 9th century by Ansgar, Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. In the 10th century, King Harald Bluetooth became a Christian and began organizing the church, since the Reformation in Denmark, the Church has been Evangelical Lutheran, while retaining much of its pre-Reformation liturgical traditions. The 1849 Constitution of Denmark designated the church the Danish peoples church, the Church of Denmark continues to maintain the historical episcopate. Theological authority is vested in bishops, ten bishops in mainland Denmark and one in Greenland, there is no archbishop, the Bishop of Copenhagen acts as a primus inter pares. The Church of Denmark is organized in dioceses, each led by a bishop. There are no archbishops, the most senior bishop is the Bishop of Copenhagen, the further subdivision includes 111 deaneries and 2,200 parishes. Each parish has a council, elected by church members in four-year terms. The parochial council leads the business of the local church and decides employment of personnel. The vicar is subordinate to the council, except in matters such as conducting church services. Both parochial councils and vicars are, however, subordinate to bishops, a special feature is the possibility of creating voluntary congregations within the Church. These account for a few percent of church members and they are voluntary associations, electing their own parochial council and vicar, whom they agree to pay from their own pockets. In return, they are exempt from church tax, the voluntary congregation and its vicar are subordinate to bishops, and members remain full members of the Church. Historically, when a parish was dominated by a fundamentalist majority and rector, today the voluntary congregations are often a solution for people who find the idea of a free church appealing, but wish to keep some bonds to the church. Another, less commonly used feature is parish optionality, according to official statistics from January 2017,75. 9% of Danes are members of the Church of Denmark. Membership rates vary from 58. 1% in the Diocese of Copenhagen to 85. 2% in the Diocese of Viborg, any person who is baptised into the Church of Denmark automatically becomes a member. Members may renounce their membership and later if they wish

Church of Denmark

93.
Plymouth Brethren
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The Plymouth Brethren are a conservative, low church, nonconformist, Evangelical Christian movement whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland in the late 1820s, originating from Anglicanism. Among other beliefs, the group emphasizes sola scriptura, the belief that the Bible is the authority for church doctrine and practice over. Brethren generally see themselves, not as a denomination, but as a network of like-minded independent churches, the Brethren would generally prefer that their gatherings be referred to as assemblies, rather than churches but, in the interests of simplicity, this article uses both terms interchangeably. An influential figure among the early Plymouth Brethren was John Nelson Darby, the movement refused to take any denominational name to itself, a stance that some still maintain. Brethren assemblies are divided into two branches, the Open Brethren and the Exclusive Brethren, following a schism that took place in 1848. Both of these branches are themselves divided into several smaller streams, with varying degrees of communication. The best-known and oldest distinction between Open and Exclusive assemblies is in the nature of relationships among their local churches, Open Brethren assemblies function as networks of like-minded independent local churches. Exclusive Brethren are generally connexional and so feel under obligation to recognise, disciplinary action normally involves denying the individual participation in the breaking of bread or Lords Table. Generally, this is a weekly, Sunday morning, hour-long service of prayer, singing, teaching, exclusion from it is a major issue. Discipline may also involve formal social ostracism or shunning to varying degrees, a numerically small movement known as the Needed Truth Brethren emerged from the Open Brethren around 1892, partly in an attempt to address the problem of making discipline more effective. Being accused of irregular or illegal financial dealings may also result in being put under discipline, in Exclusive meetings, a member under discipline in one assembly would not be accepted in another assembly, as the Assembly generally respects the decisions made by the other Assembly. Exclusive assemblies have developed into a number of different branches, when there is not universal agreement among the assemblies in a specific case of discipline, a particular act of discipline may not be recognised by all assemblies. Exclusive assemblies are also much more adherent to the shunning of the party, using as guidance instructions given in Leviticus 14. In extreme cases, members may be asked to shun or divorce members of their immediate families, another less clear difference between assemblies lies in their approaches to collaborating with other Christians. Many Open Brethren will hold Gospel meetings, youth events, or other activities in partnership with non-Brethren Evangelical Christian churches, more conservative Open Brethren—and perhaps the majority of Exclusive Brethren—tend not to support activities outside their own meetings. This group practices extreme separation and other Brethren groups generally accuse it of being a cult, most other Exclusive groups prefer not to be known by any name and are only given such designations by non-members. There are some movements with strong Brethren connections that are easy to classify. The ecclesiology, however, has more in common with that of the Exclusive Brethren, the term Exclusive is most commonly used in the media to describe one separatist group known by other groups as Taylor-Hales Brethren, who now call themselves the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church

94.
Adventism
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Adventism is a branch of Protestantism with origins in the 19th century American Protestant revival known as the Second Great Awakening. The name refers to belief in the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ, William Miller started the Adventist movement in the 1830s. His followers became known as Millerites, the movement has encouraged the examination of the whole Bible, leading Seventh-day Adventists and some smaller Adventist groups to observe the Sabbath. The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has compiled that churchs core beliefs in the 28 Fundamental Beliefs, in 2010, Adventism claimed some 22 million believers scattered in various independent churches. The largest church within the movement — the Seventh-day Adventist Church — is one of the largest Christian churches in the world, Adventism began as an inter-denominational movement. Its most vocal leader was William Miller, between 50,000 and 100,000 people in the United States supported Millers predictions of Christs return. After the Great Disappointment of October 22,1844 many people in the movement gave up on Adventism, of those remaining Adventist, the majority gave up believing in any prophetic significance for the October 22 date, yet they remained expectant of the near Advent. Of those who retained the October 22 date, many maintained that Jesus had come not literally but spiritually, a small minority held that something concrete had indeed happened on October 22, but this event had been misinterpreted. This viewpoint later emerged and crystallized with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Albany Conference in 1845, attended by 61 delegates, was called to attempt to determine the future course and meaning of the Millerite movement. Following this meeting, the Millerites then became known as Adventists or Second Adventists, however, the delegates disagreed on several theological points. Four groups emerged from the conference, The Evangelical Adventists, The Life and Advent Union, the Advent Christian Church, the largest group was organized as the American Millennial Association, a portion of which was later known as the Evangelical Adventist Church. Unique among the Adventists, they believed in an eternal hell and they declined in numbers, and by 1916 their name did not appear in the United States Census of Religious Bodies. It has diminished to almost non-existence today and their main publication was the Advent Herald, of which Sylvester Bliss was the editor until his death in 1863. It was later called the Messiah’s Herald, the Life and Advent Union was founded by George Storrs in 1863. He had established The Bible Examiner in 1842 and it merged with the Adventist Christian Church in 1964. The Advent Christian Church officially formed in 1861 grew rapidly at first and it declined a little during the 20th century. The Advent Christians publish the four magazines The Advent Christian Witness, Advent Christian News, Advent Christian Missions and they also operate a liberal arts college at Aurora, Illinois, and a one-year Bible College in Lenox, Massachusetts called Berkshire Institute for Christian Studies. The Primitive Advent Christian Church later separated from a few congregations in West Virginia, the Seventh-day Adventist Church officially formed in 1863

95.
Roman Catholic Diocese of Copenhagen
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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Copenhagen is a diocese of the Latin Church of the Roman Catholic church named after its episcopal see, the Danish national capital, Copenhagen. It covers all Denmark and two Danish overseas possessions, the Faroe Islands and Greenland and it is estimated that 36,000 out of the 5,516,597 inhabitants of the diocesan territory are Roman Catholics. The current bishop, appointed in 1995, is Czeslaw Kozon and his predecessor, bishop Hans Ludvig Martensen, S. J. served in the position from 1965 to 1995, when he resigned the post. The principal church of the diocese is St. Ansgars Cathedral, the former bishoprics of Ribe and Odense were the former provincial dioceses, that have since been subsumed into the diocese of Copenhagen. The Diocese of Copenhagen is exempt immediately subject to the Holy See and it was established on August 7,1868 as the Vicariate Apostolic of the Northern Missions. In 1869, it was demoted as the Apostolic Prefecture of Denmark, on March 15,1892, it was again promoted as the Vicariate Apostolic of Denmark. Only on April 29,1953 it was promoted as the regular, the Rev. Hermann Grüder The Most Rev. Johannes Von Euch The Most Rev. Josef Ludwig Brems, O. Praem The Most Rev. Johannes Theodor Suhr, O. S. B. The Most Rev. Czeslaw Kozon List of Roman Catholic dioceses in Nordic Europe Diocese of Copenhagen homepage GCatholic. org Catholic Hierarchy

96.
Magnus Cathedral
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St. Magnus Cathedral is a ruined cathedral in the village of Kirkjubøur on the island of Streymoy in the Faroe Islands. Bishop Erlendur started construction in about the year 1300, however, the building was never completed, because it was never roofed. The cathedral remains in a state to this day. St. Magnus Cathedral is the largest medieval building in the Faroe Islands, during 2002-2004, a wooden shed was erected around most of the ruin, giving it enough shelter to dry out, before work could begin on preservation. The shed drew considerable criticism because of its looks, during the research into how to preserve the ruin, a conclusion was reached. No outward reconstruction would be made, and instead ongoing preservation work would be implemented, in addition, all horizontal surfaces, where water could seep in, would be soft capped with mortar and clay before being topped with sod and grass. Today considerable headway has been made, large sections of the shedding have been removed and work is expected to be finished in the not too distant future. While it is hoped that the St. Magnus Cathedral will be accepted as a UNESCO World heritage Site, pictures of the ruins of the St. Magnus Cathedral were featured on a series of Faroese stamps in 1988

97.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it

98.
Hindu
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Hindu refers to any person who regards themselves as culturally, ethnically, or religiously adhering to aspects of Hinduism. It has historically used as a geographical, cultural, or religious identifier for people indigenous to South Asia. The historical meaning of the term Hindu has evolved with time, by the 16th century, the term began to refer to residents of India who were not Turks or Muslims. The historical development of Hindu self-identity within the Indian population, in a religious or cultural sense, is unclear, competing theories state that Hindu identity developed in the British colonial era, or that it developed post-8th century CE after the Islamic invasion and medieval Hindu-Muslim wars. A sense of Hindu identity and the term Hindu appears in texts dated between the 13th and 18th century in Sanskrit and regional languages. The 14th- and 18th-century Indian poets such as Vidyapati, Kabir and Eknath used the phrase Hindu dharma, the Christian friar Sebastiao Manrique used the term Hindu in religious context in 1649. In the 18th century, the European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus, in contrast to Mohamedans for Mughals, scholars state that the custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs is a modern phenomenon. Hindoo is a spelling variant, whose use today may be considered derogatory. At more than 1.03 billion, Hindus are the third largest group after Christians. The vast majority of Hindus, approximately 966 million, live in India, according to Indias 2011 census. After India, the next 9 countries with the largest Hindu populations are, in decreasing order, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom and Myanmar. These together accounted for 99% of the worlds Hindu population, the word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan and Sanskrit word Sindhu, which means a large body of water, covering river, ocean. It was used as the name of the Indus river and also referred to its tributaries, the Punjab region, called Sapta Sindhava in the Vedas, is called Hapta Hindu in Zend Avesta. The 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I mentions the province of Hidush, the people of India were referred to as Hinduvān and hindavī was used as the adjective for Indian in the 8th century text Chachnama. The term Hindu in these ancient records is an ethno-geographical term, the Arabic equivalent Al-Hind likewise referred to the country of India. Among the earliest known records of Hindu with connotations of religion may be in the 7th-century CE Chinese text Record of the Western Regions by the Buddhist scholar Xuanzang, Xuanzang uses the transliterated term In-tu whose connotation overflows in the religious according to Arvind Sharma. The Hindu community occurs as the amorphous Other of the Muslim community in the court chronicles, wilfred Cantwell Smith notes that Hindu retained its geographical reference initially, Indian, indigenous, local, virtually native. Slowly, the Indian groups themselves started using the term, differentiating themselves, the poet Vidyapatis poem Kirtilata contrasts the cultures of Hindus and Turks in a city and concludes The Hindus and the Turks live close together, Each makes fun of the others religion

99.
Buddhism
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Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha

100.
Sikhism
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Sikhism, or Sikhi, is a panentheistic religion that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent during the 15th century. It is one of the youngest of the world religions. Sikhism has 25-28 million adherents worldwide and is the ninth-largest religion in the world, Sikhism is based on the spiritual teachings of Guru Nanak, the first Guru, and the ten successive Sikh gurus. Guru Nanak established Kartarpur around 1520 and gathered the original core of the Sikh Panth there, an Indian religion, Sikhism rejects claims that any particular religious tradition has a monopoly on Absolute Truth. Sikhism emphasizes simran, that can be expressed musically through kirtan or internally through Nam Japo as a means to feel Gods presence, hand in hand, secular life is considered to be intertwined with the spiritual life. He also established the system of the langar, or communal kitchen, Guru Hargobind, the sixth Sikh Guru, established the political/temporal and spiritual realms to be mutually coexistent. The development of Sikhism was influenced by the Bhakti movement, however, Sikhism developed while the region was being ruled by the Mughal Empire. Two of the Sikh gurus – Guru Arjan and Guru Tegh Bahadur, the Islamic era persecution of Sikhs triggered the founding of the Khalsa, as an order for freedom of conscience and religion. A Sikh is expected to embody the qualities of a Sant-Sipāhī – a saint-soldier, the majority of Sikh scriptures were originally written in Gurmukhī alphabet, a script standardised by Guru Angad out of Laṇḍā scripts used in North India. Adherents of Sikhism are known as Sikhs, which means students or disciples of the Guru, the anglicized word Sikhism is derived from the Punjabi verb Sikhi, with roots in Sikhana, and Sikhi connotes the temporal path of learning. Sikhism is a religion and states that there is one supreme entity holding control of the entire universe. This entity is referred to as Ik Onkar, the basis of Sikhism lies in the teachings of Guru Nanak and his successors. The essence of Sikh teaching is summated by Guru Nanaks words, Sikh teaching emphasizes the principle of equality of all humans and rejects discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, and gender. Sikh principles encourage living life as a householder, Sikhism is a monistic form of monotheistic religion. In Sikhism, the concept of God is Vāhigurū—is shapeless, timeless, and invisible, niraṅkār, akaal, the beginning of the first composition of Sikh scripture is the figure 1—signifying the universality of God. It states that God is omnipresent and infinite with power over everything, Sikhs believe that before creation, all that existed was God and Gods hukam. God in Sikhism is known as Ik Onkar, the One Supreme Reality or the all-pervading spirit and this spirit has no gender in Sikhism, though translations may present it as masculine. It is also Akaal Purkh and Nirankar, in addition, Nanak wrote that there are many worlds on which it has created life

Sikhism
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Guru Nanak was the founder of the religion of Sikhism and the first of the eleven Sikh Gurus, the eleventh being the living Guru, Guru Granth Sahib
Sikhism
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The Harimandir Sahib, known popularly as the Golden Temple, is a sacred shrine for Sikhs.
Sikhism
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A Sikh man at Harmandir Sahib, also called the Golden Temple
Sikhism
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A rare Tanjore -style painting from the late 19th century depicting the ten Sikh Gurus with Bhai Bala and Bhai Mardana.

101.
Primary education
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Primary education or elementary education is typically the first stage of compulsory education, coming between early childhood education and secondary education. Primary education usually takes place in a school or elementary school. In some countries, primary education is followed by school, an educational stage which exists in some countries. In order to achieve the goal by 2015, the United Nations estimated that all children at the entry age for primary school would have had to have been attending classes by 2009. This would depend on the duration of the level, as well as how well the schools retain students until the end of the cycle. As of 2010, the number of new teachers needed in sub-Saharan Africa alone, however, the gender gap for children not in education had also been narrowed. Between 1999 and 2008, the number of not in education worldwide had decreased from 57 percent to 53 percent, however it should also be noted that in some regions. According to the United Nations, there are things in the regions that have already been accomplished. The country doubled its enrollment ratio over the same period, other regions in Latin America such as Guatemala and Nicaragua as well as Zambia in Southern Africa broke through the 90 percent towards greater access to primary education. In Australia, students undertake preschool then 13 years of schooling before moving to vocational or higher education, Primary schooling for most children starts after they turn 5 years old. In most states, children can be enrolled earlier at the discretion of individual school principals on the basis of intellectual giftedness, in Victoria, New South Wales, Northern Territory, ACT and Tasmania students then move through Kindergarten/Preparatory School/Reception and Years 1 to 6 before starting high school. Pre-School/Kindergarten,4 to 5 years old Prep, currently, at the age of 6 children attend from the grade 1 to 4 what is called Ensino Primário, and afterwards from grade 5 to 9 the Ensino Fundamental. At the age of 15 the teenagers go to Ensino Médio, which is equivalent High School in other countries, Primary school is mandatory and consists in nine years called Ensino Fundamental, separated in Ensino Fundamental I and Ensino Fundamental II. Primary school is followed by the three years called Ensino Médio. 1st grade, 15- to 16-year-olds, 2nd grade, 16- to 17-year-olds, 3rd grade, in Canada, primary school usually begins at ages three or four, starting with either Kindergarten or Grade 1 and lasts until age 13 or 14. Many places in Canada have a split between primary and elementary schools, in Nova Scotia elementary school is the most common term. The provincial government of Nova Scotia uses the term Primary instead of Kindergarten, most children are pupils in the Danish Folkeskolen, which has the current grades, Kindergarten, 3–6 years https, //meta. wikimedia. The first three grades of school are called Algkool which can be translated as beginning school and can be confused with primary school

Primary education
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A large elementary school in Magome, Japan
Primary education
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Children and teacher in a primary school classroom in Laos
Primary education
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An elementary school in California, United States
Primary education
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A poster at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, New York, USA, showing the Millennium Development Goals.

102.
Secondary education
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Secondary education covers two phases on the ISCED scale. Level 2 or junior secondary education is considered the second and final phase of basic education, every country aims to provide basic education, but the systems and terminology remain unique to them. Secondary education typically takes place six years of primary education and is followed by higher education. In most countries it is compulsory for students between the ages 11 and 16, Compulsory education sometimes extends to age 19. In classical and mediaeval times secondary education was provided by the church for the sons of nobility and to boys preparing for universities, as trade required navigational and scientific skills the church reluctantly expanded the curriculum and widened the intake. As late as 1868, secondary schools were organised to satisfy the needs of different social classes with the labouring classes getting 4yrs, the merchant class 5yrs, only then did it become accepted that girls could be sent to school. The rights to an education were codified after 1945, and countries are still working to achieve the goal of mandatory. It is at this education level, particularly in its first cycle. Within a country these can be implemented in different ways, with different age levels, Level 1 and Level 2, that is primary education and lower secondary together form basic education. Though they may be dated they do provide a set of definitions. The educational aim is to complete provision of education, completing the delivery of basic skills. The end of secondary education often coincides with the end of compulsory education in countries where that exists. There are also vocational schools that last only three years. Secondary schools supply students with primary subjects needed for the work environment in Croatia. People who completed secondary school are classified as medium expertise, there are currently around 90 gymnasiums and some 300 vocational schools in Croatia. The public secondary schools are under the jurisdiction of regional government, the two secondary phases are the Gymnasium followed by Eniaio Lykeio or Unified Lyceum. The third phase is the Post-secondary education consisting of public institutions or universities. Due to historic reasons, the Czech school system is almost the same as the German school system, the school system is free and mandatory until age 15

103.
Higher education
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Higher education, post-secondary education, or third level education is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completion of secondary education. Tertiary education at non-degree level is referred to as further education or continuing education as distinct from higher education. The right of access to education is mentioned in a number of international human rights instruments. In Europe, Article 2 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, adopted in 1950, in the days when few pupils progressed beyond primary education, the term higher education was often used to refer to secondary education, which can create some confusion. Higher education includes teaching, research, exacting applied work, within the realm of teaching, it includes both the undergraduate level, and beyond that, graduate-level. The latter level of education is referred to as graduate school. Higher education is important to national economies, both as an industry, in its own right, and as a source of trained and educated personnel for the rest of the economy. College educated workers have commanded a measurable wage premium and are less likely to become unemployed than less educated workers. However, the admission of so many students of average ability to higher education inevitably requires a decline in academic standards. There is some question as to whether advanced mathematical skills or talent are in fact necessary for such as history, English, philosophy. In contrast, the higher education and training that takes place at vocational universities and schools usually concentrates on practical applications. Requirements for admission to such high-level graduate programs is extremely competitive, in the United States, there are large differences in wages and employment associated with different degrees. Medical doctors and lawyers are generally the highest paid workers, and have among the lowest unemployment rates and it may encompass using insights to conceive, model and scale an appropriate solution to a problem or objective. Engineering disciplines include, aerospace, biological, civil, chemical, computer, electrical, industrial, examples are painting, sculpture, and drawing, etc. Higher educational institutions in these arts include Film schools and Art schools, Higher vocational education and training takes place at the non-university tertiary level. Such education combines teaching of practical skills and theoretical expertise. Higher education differs from other forms of education such as that offered by institutions of vocational education. Higher vocational education might be contrasted with education in a broader scientific field

104.
12th century
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As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Common Era. In the history of European culture, this period is considered part of the High Middle Ages and is called the Age of the Cistercians. In Song dynasty China an invasion by Jurchens caused a schism of north and south. The Khmer Empire of Cambodia flourished during this century, while the Fatimids of Egypt were overtaken by the Ayyubid dynasty, China is under the Northern Song dynasty. Early in the century, Zhang Zeduan paints Along the River During the Qingming Festival and it will later end up in the Palace Museum, Beijing. In southeast Asia, there is conflict between the Khmer Empire and the Champa, Angkor Wat is built under the Hindu king Suryavarman II. By the end of the century the Buddhist Jayavarman VII becomes the ruler, Japan is in its Heian period. The Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga is made and attributed to Toba Sōjō and it ends up at the Kōzan-ji, Kyoto. In Oceania, the Tuʻi Tonga Empire expands to a greater area. Europe undergoes the Renaissance of the 12th century, the blast furnace for the smelting of cast iron is imported from China, appearing around Lapphyttan, Sweden, as early as 1150. Alexander Neckam is the first European to document the mariners compass, Christian humanism becomes a self-conscious philosophical tendency in Europe. Christianity is also introduced to Estonia, Finland, and Karelia, the first medieval universities are founded. Middle English begins to develop, and literacy begins to spread outside the Church throughout Europe, in addition, churchmen are increasingly willing to take on secular roles. By the end of the century, at least a third of Englands bishops also act as judges in secular matters. The Ars antiqua period in the history of the music of Western Europe begins. The earliest recorded miracle play is performed in Dunstable, England Gothic architecture and trouvère music begin in France, during the middle of the century, the Cappella Palatina is built in Palermo, Sicily, and the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript illustrates the Synopsis of Histories by John Skylitzes. Fire and plague insurance first become available in Iceland, and the first documented outbreaks of influenza there happens, the medieval state of Serbia state is formed by Stefan Nemanja and then continued by the Nemanjić dynasty. By the end of the century, both the Capetian Dynasty and the House of Anjou are relying primarily on mercenaries in their militaries, paid soldiers are available year-round, unlike knights who expected certain periods off to maintain their manor lifestyles

12th century
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Eastern Hemisphere at the beginning of the 12th century.
12th century
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A Black and White Photo of the 12th century Cuenca Cathedral (built from 1182 to 1270) in Cuenca, Spain
12th century
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The temple complex of Angkor Wat, built during the reign of Suryavarman II in Cambodia of the Khmer Era.
12th century
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The Liuhe Pagoda of Hangzhou, China, 1165

105.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church

106.
Fish farming
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Fish farming or pisciculture involves raising fish commercially in tanks or enclosures, usually for food. It is the form of aquaculture, while other methods may fall under mariculture. A facility that releases juvenile fish into the wild for recreational fishing or to supplement a species numbers is generally referred to as a fish hatchery. Worldwide, the most important fish species used in farming are carp, tilapia, salmon. Demand is increasing for fish and fish protein, which has resulted in widespread overfishing in wild fisheries, china provides 62% of the worlds farmed fish. As of 2016, more than 50% of seafood was produced by aquaculture, Farming carnivorous fish, such as salmon, does not always reduce pressure on wild fisheries, since carnivorous farmed fish are usually fed fishmeal and fish oil extracted from wild forage fish. The 2008 global returns for fish farming recorded by the FAO totaled 33.8 million tonnes worth about $US60 billion, Aquaculture makes use of local photosynthetic production or fish that are fed with external food supply. Growth is limited by food, commonly zooplankton feeding on pelagic algae or benthic animals, such as crustaceans. Tilapia filter feed directly on phytoplankton, which makes higher production possible, photosynthetic production can be increased by fertilizing pond water with artificial fertilizer mixtures, such as potash, phosphorus, nitrogen, and microelements. Another issue is the risk of algal blooms, when temperatures, nutrient supply, and available sunlight are optimal for algal growth, algae multiply at an exponential rate, eventually exhausting nutrients and causing a subsequent die-off. The decaying algal biomass depletes the oxygen in the water because it blocks out the sun and pollutes it with organic and inorganic solutes. An alternate option is to use a system such as that of Veta la Palma in Spain. Despite these limitations, significant fish farming industries use these methods, in the Czech Republic, thousands of natural and seminatural ponds are harvested each year for trout and carp. The large ponds around Trebon built from around 1650 are still in use, in these kinds of systems fish production per unit of surface can be increased at will, as long as sufficient oxygen, fresh water and food are provided. Because of the requirement of sufficient fresh water, a water purification system must be integrated in the fish farm. One way to achieve this is to combine hydroponic horticulture and water treatment, the exception to this rule are cages which are placed in a river or sea, which supplements the fish crop with sufficient oxygenated water. Some environmentalists object to this practice, however, these higher protein level requirements are a consequence of the higher feed efficiency of aquatic animals. Fish such as salmon have an FCR around 1.1 kg of feed per kg of salmon whereas chickens are in the 2.5 kg of feed per kg of chicken range

Fish farming
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Koi farming indoors in Israel
Fish farming
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Salmon farming in the sea (mariculture) at Loch Ainort, Isle of Skye
Fish farming
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Aqua-Boy, a Norwegian live fish carrier used to service the Marine Harvest fish farms on the West coast of Scotland
Fish farming
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Expressing eggs from a female rainbow trout

107.
Atlantic Airways
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Most of its pilots are members of the Faroese Pilot Association. Regular air links to the Faroes had been in operation since 1963, calls for the creation of a Faroese airline company began in the early 1980s. Passenger numbers were increasing and Danish carrier Maersk Air enjoyed the monopoly as the sole airline to serve the Faroe Islands. As a result, Atlantic Airways was established in 1987, initially between the Faroese government and Danish airline Cimber Air, though the Faroese government would assume full ownership in 1989, flights commenced between Vágar and Copenhagen on 28 March 1988 using a British Aerospace BAe 146. A hangar was built at Vágar by the Faroese government in order to secure Atlantic Airways home base in the Faroes, ensuring maintenance facilities were available on the islands. The aim of the new company was to build up a Faroese aviation industry on a commercial basis. Flight crews and management were Faroese, though load factors were high and the new service was popular, Atlantic Airways had a turbulent beginning economically. The Faroe Islands suffered an economic depression in the early 1990s, and at its nadir in 1992. Atlantic Airways would not become profitable until 1995, flights were launched to Reykjavík in 1995 in co-operation with Air Iceland, and also to Narsarsuaq in Greenland in the summer months, in co-operation with Air Iceland. The latter half of the 1990s saw Billund in Denmark and Aberdeen in the UK added to Atlantic Airways flight schedule, the growing list of destinations and passenger numbers, together with the stabilisation of the airlines finances, saw a second BAe 146 added to the fleet in 2000. This new aircraft meant services to London in the UK and the Norwegian capital Oslo added to the network, growth in tourism on the islands has also enabled flights to Aalborg, Stavanger, Stord and Edinburgh. However, for the 2006 season services to Stord have been discontinued, Atlantic Airways also entered the UK domestic market in 2006, becoming the only carrier to offer a direct service between Shetland and London, which it did on a twice weekly basis. The UK domestic operation ceased in 2008, Atlantic Airways also operates a domestic service by helicopter, in many instances a vital connection to many of the islands, which otherwise can only be reached by sea. The government hired a helicopter in 1978 for these tasks, the helicopters provide a round trip hopper service to each of the islands, which is also ideal for tourists looking for aerial views. The company is required to have at least one helicopter, operational and ready for search, over the last 5 years, Atlantic Airways has produced profits of between 8 and 13 million DKK. The company has increased its turnover from 120 million in 1998 to 520 million DKK in 2006, Atlantic Airways employed 177 people at January 2007. Atlantic Airways was listed at the Iceland Stock Exchange on 10 December 2007, the Faroese government has decided on a privatisation process and has sold off 33% of the company in the first bidding round. The first day of trading was 10 December 2007, the government was planning to sell off 33% more in 2008, but this was cancelled due to the financial crisis

108.
Civil Aviation Administration Denmark
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Was the Danish government agency that oversaw all civil aviation in Denmark, including the autonomous areas of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. CAA-DK, with its office in Copenhagen, was part of the Danish Ministry of Transport. In addition to the regulation of aviation, it also operated the Bornholm Airport. On 1 November 2010 the Danish Transport Authority and the Civil Aviation Administration - Denmark were merged to one administration, the name of the new administration is the Danish Transport Authority. The former CAA-DK attends to the same tasks as before and remains at the same address, Civil Aviation Administration Denmark Civil Aviation Administration Denmark

109.
Hirtshals
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Hirtshals is a town and seaport on the coast of Skagerrak on the island of Vendsyssel-Thy at the top of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark, Europe. It is located in Hjørring municipality in Region Nordjylland, the town of Hirtshals has a population of 5,959. Located on the Skagerrak, it is known for its fishing. The town of Hirtshals developed around the harbour which was constructed between 1919 and 1931. In 1925, the Hjørring-Hirtshals railway line opened to link the port of Hirtshals with the Danish rail network, in 1966, the harbour was expanded and became one of the largest fishing ports in Denmark. Until January 1,2007, Hirtshals was also the seat of Hirtshals Municipality which was merged with existing Hjørring, Løkken-Vrå, Hirtshals is located on the sand and clay promontory Hirtshals, overlooking the Skagerrak between the Jammer Bay and the Tannis Bay. The shoreline is backed by low cliffs, beneath which is a narrow, the towns 35 metre high lighthouse, Hirtshals fyr, is a local landmark. Building was begun on June 28th,1860, and it was first lit on January 1st,1863 and it is constructed of red brick, and covered with Dutch tile. The sea level has been as high as 1 meter over the norm, but in days where there is no wind, the waves typically wont be higher than max 20 cm over normal sea level. Due to the proximity of the town to the coast, sea fog is not an uncommon occurrence, in the winter, the air temperature can fall as low as 1.6 degrees, but in the summer, it can reach over 25 degrees Celsius. Hirtshals Havnekontor keeps track of wave periods, on yearly basis wave periods fluctuate between half a second, up to about 9 seconds. According to Hirtshals Havnekontor normal wave heights are between 2 and 2.5 meters, the prevailing wind in Hirtshals is to the south or south-west. Wind speeds vary all year long, usually topping at 10 m/s during the winter, fishing plays a big role for the town and its inhabitants, as does tourism and the renting of summer homes. Due to the connections with Norway, the shops in Hirtshals thrive on the large number of visitors, especially Norwegians. It is the home of one of the largest aquariums in Europe, the Oceanarium has 70 different species in its collection. A fire in December 2003 destroyed the new extension, but the Nordsøen Oceanarium was rebuilt, Hirtshals is the Danish terminal for the services of the Norwegian ferry company, Color Line. Each year thousands of Norwegian, German and Dutch tourists travel back, previously, Color Line also offered services to Bergen, Stavanger and Oslo, but decided to stop operating these routes in early 2008. Another ferry operator, Fjord Line, now operates a route to Bergen and it has also been possible since autumn 2010 to travel to Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands and to Seyðisfjörður in Iceland with Smyril Line

Hirtshals
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Hirtshals
Hirtshals
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The Hirtshals Kro pub in the town centre
Hirtshals
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The nature of Hirtshals: the beach, the cliffs, the North Sea and the history: the bunkers and the lighthouse
Hirtshals
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Memorial in Hirtshals to the crew of lifeboat RF 2, sunk in 1981

110.
Krambatangi
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Krambatangi is the ferry port of Suðuroy in the Faroe Islands. The ferry Smyril M/F disembarks 2-3 times daily from Krambatangi to Tórshavn, Krambatangi is located on the southern side of Trongisvágsfjørður halfway between Trongisvágur and Øravík, opposite of Tvøroyri. The ferry port was earlier on Drelnes, which is a few hundred meters further east of Krambatangi, but in 2005 a new ferry arrived, which was much bigger than the prior one, and therefore they built a new ferryport on Krambatangi. The Faroese court decided, that SSL ought to pay for entering the port of Tvøroyri, but SSL appealed the verdict

111.
Ferry
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A ferry is a merchant vessel used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate regular return services, a passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi. Ferries form a part of the transport systems of many waterside cities and islands. However, ship connections of much larger distances may also be called ferry services, the profession of the ferryman is embodied in Greek mythology in Charon, the boatman who transported souls across the River Styx to the Underworld. Speculation that a pair of oxen propelled a ship having a wheel can be found in 4th century Roman literature Anonymus De Rebus Bellicis. Though impractical, there is no reason why it could not work and such a ferry, see When Horses Walked on Water, Horse-Powered Ferries in Nineteenth-Century America. The Marine Services Company of Tanzania offers passenger and cargo services in three of the African Great Lakes viz, Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Nyasa. It also operates one of the oldest ferries in the region, Ferries from Great Britain also sail to Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Ireland. Some ferries carry mainly tourist traffic, but most also carry freight, in Britain, car-carrying ferries are sometimes referred to as RORO for the ease by which vehicles can board and leave. The busiest single ferry route is across the part of Øresund. Before the Øresund bridge was opened in July 2000, car and car & train ferries departed up to seven times every hour, in 2013, this has been reduced, but a car ferry still departs from each harbor every 15 minutes during daytime. The route is around 2.2 nautical miles and the crossing takes 22 minutes, today, all ferries on this route are constructed so that they do not need to turn around in the harbors. This also means that the ferries lack natural stems and sterns, due to the same circumstances, starboard and port-side are dynamic and depending of in what direction the ferry sails. Despite the short crossing, the ferries are equipped with restaurants, cafeteria, kiosks, large cruiseferries sail in the Baltic Sea between Finland, Åland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Saint Petersburg, Russia and from Italy to Sardinia, Corsica, Spain and Greece. In many ways, these ferries are like cruise ships, also many smaller ferries operate on domestic routes in Finland, Sweden and Estonia. The south-west and southern parts of the Baltic Sea has several routes mainly for heavy traffic, on the longer of these routes, simple cabins are available. In Istanbul, ferries connect the European and Asian shores of Bosphorus, as well as Princes Islands, in 2014 İDO transported 47 million passengers, the largest ferry system in the world. Due to the numbers of freshwater lakes and length of shoreline in Canada

112.
Nordic countries
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The Nordic countries or Nordics are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic, where they are most commonly known as Norden. They consist of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, the population of the Nordic countries are mainly Scandinavian or Finnish, with Greenlandic Inuit and the Sami people as minorities. Of todays native languages, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, the non-Germanic languages spoken are Finnish, Greenlandic and several Sami languages. The main religion is Lutheran Christianity, the Nordic countries have much in common in their way of life, history, their use of Scandinavian languages and social structure. Politically, Nordic countries do not form an entity. Especially in English, Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym for the Nordic countries, Scandinavian Peninsula on the other hand covers mainland Norway and Sweden as well as the northernmost part of Finland. At 3,425,804 square kilometers, the area of the Nordic countries would form the 7th-largest country in the world. Uninhabitable icecaps and glaciers comprise about half of area, mostly in Greenland. In January 2013, the region had a population of around 26 million people, the Nordic countries cluster near the top in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, and human development. Although the area is linguistically heterogeneous, with three unrelated groups, the common linguistic heritage is one of the factors making up the Nordic identity. The North Germanic languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are considered mutually intelligible and these languages are taught in school throughout the Nordic countries. Swedish, for example, is a subject in Finnish schools. Danish is mandatory in Faroese and Greenlandic schools, as these states are a part of the Danish Realm. Iceland also teaches Danish, since Iceland too was a part of the Danish Realm until 1918, there is a high degree of income redistribution and little social unrest. The Nordic countries consists of historical territories of the Scandinavian countries, areas that share a common history and it is meant unambiguously to refer to this larger group, since the term Scandinavia is narrower and sometimes ambiguous. The Nordic countries are considered to unambiguously refer to Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The term is derived indirectly from the local term Norden, used in the Scandinavian languages, unlike the Nordic countries, the term Norden is in the singular. The demonym is nordbo, literally meaning northern dweller, especially outside of the Nordic region the term Scandinavia is often used incorrectly as a synonym for the Nordic countries

113.
Viking Age
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The Viking Age is the period from the late 8th century to the mid-11th century in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, following the Germanic Iron Age. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonisation and conquest. Three Viking ships had beached in Weymouth Bay four years earlier, the Viking devastation of Northumbrias Holy Island was reported by the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin of York, who wrote, Never before in Britain has such a terror appeared. Vikings were portrayed as violent and bloodthirsty by their enemies. The chronicles of medieval England portrayed them as rapacious wolves among sheep, the first challenges to the many anti-Viking images in Britain emerged in the 17th century. Pioneering scholarly works on the Viking Age reached a readership in Britain. Archaeologists began to dig up Britains Viking past, linguistics traced the Viking-Age origins of rural idioms and proverbs. New dictionaries of the Old Norse language enabled more Victorians to read the Icelandic Sagas, the Vikings who invaded western and eastern Europe were chiefly pagans from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They also settled in the Faroe Islands, Ireland, Iceland, peripheral Scotland, Greenland and their North Germanic language, Old Norse, became the mother-tongue of present-day Scandinavian languages. By 801, a central authority appears to have been established in Jutland. In Norway, mountainous terrain and fjords formed strong natural boundaries, communities there remained independent of each other, unlike the situation in Denmark which is lowland. By 800, some 30 small kingdoms existed in Norway, the sea was the easiest way of communication between the Norwegian kingdoms and the outside world. It was in the 8th century that Scandinavians began to build ships of war, the North Sea rovers were traders, colonisers and explorers as well as plunderers. There are various theories concerning the causes of the Viking invasions, for people living along the coast, it would seem natural to seek new land by the sea. Another reason was that during this period England, Wales and Ireland, the Franks, however, had well-defended coasts and heavily fortified ports and harbours. Pure thirst for adventure may also have been a factor, a reason for the raids is believed by some to be over-population caused by technological advances, such as the use of iron, or a shortage of women due to selective female infanticide. Although another cause could well have been caused by the Frankish expansion to the south of Scandinavia. Consequently, these Vikings became raiders, in search of subsistence, There is ongoing debate among scholars as to why the Scandinavians began to expand during the 8th through 11th centuries

Viking Age
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History of Scandinavia
Viking Age
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Viking Voyages in the North Atlantic
Viking Age
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Viking era towns of Scandinavia

114.
Norn language
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Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken in the Northern Isles off the north coast of mainland Scotland and in Caithness in the far north of the Scottish mainland. After Orkney and Shetland were pledged to Scotland by Norway in 1468/69, Norse settlement in the islands probably began in the early 9th century. These settlers are believed to have arrived in very substantial numbers and like those who migrated to Iceland, Shetland toponymy bears some resemblance to that of northwest Norway, while Norn vocabulary implies links with more southerly Norwegian regions. Orkney and Shetland were pledged to James III in 1468 and 1469 respectively, in Shetland the transition began later, but by the end of the 15th century both island groups were bilingual. It is not known exactly when Norn became extinct, sources from the 17th and 18th centuries speak of Norn as being in a state of decline and generally indicate that the language remained stronger in Shetland than in Orkney. A source from 1670 states that there are three or four parishes in Orkney where people speak Noords or rude Danish and that they do so chiefly when they are at their own houses. The last reports of Norn speakers are claimed to be from the 19th century, walter Sutherland from Skaw in Unst, who died about 1850, has been cited as the last native speaker of the Norn language. However, fragments of vocabulary survived the death of the language and remain to this day, mainly in place-names and terms referring to plants, animals, weather, mood. Norn had also been a language in Caithness but had probably become extinct there by the 15th century. Hence, some also speak about Caithness Norn, but others avoid this. Even less is known about Caithness Norn than about Orkney and Shetland Norn, almost no written Norn has survived, but what little remains includes a version of the Lords Prayer and a ballad, Hildina. Michael P Barnes, professor of Scandinavian Studies at University College London, has published a study, The Norn Language of Orkney, Norn is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. Together with Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian, it belongs to the West Scandinavian group and it is distinct from the present day dialect of Shetland, Shetland Scots, which evolved from Middle English. The phonology of Norn can never be determined with much due to the lack of source material. Norn shared many traits with the dialects of south-west Norway and this includes a voicing of /p, t, k/ to before or between vowels and a conversion of /θ/ and /ð/ to and respectively. The features of Norn grammar were very similar to the other Scandinavian languages, there were two numbers, three genders and four cases. Though it is difficult to be certain of many of the aspects of Norn grammar, documents indicate that it may have featured subjectless clauses, Shetland Norn, Fyvor or er i Chimeri. / La vill din vera guerde i vrildin sindaeri chimeri, / Gav vus dagh u dagloght brau

115.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period

116.
Faroese literature
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In the Middle Ages many poems and stories were handed down orally. These works were split into the divisions, sagnir, ævintyr. These kvæði were eventually written down in the 19th century and they are still used in Faroese dance without any use of instruments. No sagas were created in the Faroe Islands, but In the 13th century the Færeyinga saga was written in Iceland and it tells the story of the settlement and early history of the Faroe Islands, though it is doubtful if it is entirely historically accurate. Faroese letters survive from the 13th and 14th centuries, and Faroese ballads were collected in the 17th century, Faroese literature, in the traditional sense of the word, has only really developed in the past two hundred years. This is mainly because of the isolation, and also because the Faroese language was not written down in a standardised format until 1890. Until then the Danish language was encouraged at the expense of Faroese, nevertheless, the Faroese language soon became a vehicle for literature in its own right and has produced writers in several genres. One of the first Faroese writers was the early 19th century liberal Nólsoyar Páll - Poul Poulson Nólsoy and he wrote many poems, including his most famous work Fuglakvæði. Later poets include the brothers Janus and Hans Andreas Djurhuus, other famous authors from the Faroes include Heðin Brú, Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen and William Heinesen, who also wrote in Danish. Both Heinesen and Patursson were awarded The Nordic Councils Literature Prize, dicuil built on older sources, but added information of his own regarding, for example, the location of the Faroe Islands. According to the Faroe Saga, the Faroe Islands belonged to the crown of Norway and were converted to Christianity by Sigmund Brestirsson, C.990 – The Magnus Cathedral in Kirkjebø in Streymoy was erected but never finished. This is the oldest remaining document regarding the Faroe Islands, after some 400 years in Denmark, the document was repatriated to the Faroe Islands. Since 1990 it has been at Føroya Landsskjalasavni, 1547–1794 Den Lærde Skole i Thorshavn. 1588–1664 Ole Worm, a famous Danish medical doctor and natural scientist and he had a great interest in antiquarianism and he was the first to collect Faroese ballads. These were collected by for him by Faroese and sent to him in 1639. These are only now in secondary sources, because of the fire in Copenhagen in 1728. ”– here we see, that it is the number of sheep. Jónsson published another text called Crymogaea, where he writes about the sheep on the Faroe Islands. It was published by P. A. Munch in 1850 under the name Symbolæ ad Historiam Antiquiorem Rerum Norwegicarum, the text was written in the 15th century, but it relies on older sources, some dating back to the 12th century

117.
Faroese dance
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The Faroese dance is the national circle dance of the Faroe Islands, accompanied by kvæði, the Faroese ballads. The dance is a typical mediaeval ring dance, the dance is danced traditionally in a circle, but when a lot of people take part in the dance they usually let it swing around in various wobbles within the circle. When dancing there are a few rules, one is that your right hand must overlap the left hand of the one next to you while moving your feet two paces to a side and one pace back. The side is chosen by the skiparin, captain, the skiparin is the one who sings and must know all the verses, while the people who are dancing with him in the circle join in at the chorus. The following description is by V. U, the dance in itself only consists in holding each others hands, while the dancers form a circle. This means that every dancer has to follow these curves of the chain, the dancers thereby pass each other face to face twice in each round. The tunes of the ballads are in sixth bars and accompanied by a rhythmical, the most common version of the dance is the “stígingarstev”. If it is a ballad, which is sung in a slow tempo. Another variation of the dance is the “trokingarstev”, for this dance, the more quick and lively ballads are used. This dance is practiced in the northern Faroe Islands than in the southern Faroe Islands. The people from Suðuroy do, all considered, use more expression in the dance than people on the northern islands. A third variant of the dance, where quick folksongs and ballads are used as well, is “bandadansur”, the dancers stand in two rows, two to four feet apart – men on one side, women on the other, holding a ribbon between each couple. While the stanzas are sung, they still, while making the common rhythmical stamps with the feet. When the refrain ends, the stop and lower their ribbons. This is a lively, yet rather tiring dance. Besides the common dances, there are different dance games, some of which are accompanied by special songs, some of these games are of Faroese origin, while others originate from other countries. In Svabos fifth travel book in the Royal Library, he has described several of these dance games, the Faroese chain dance is a living tradition. There are several Faroese Dance Associations in the Faroe Islands and a few in Denmark too and these associations arrange for evenings with Faroese chain dance, mostly in wintertime

118.
Ormurin Langi
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Ormurin Langi is a ballad type song in the Faroe Islands. It was written ca.1830 by Jens Christian Djurhuus, the song has 86 verses and is in Faeroese, and deals with the Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvason. The title Ormurin Langi refers to Olaf Tryggvasons ship with the same name, around 1800 there was an increasing amount of attention paid to the store of Faroese folk ballads, which survived in the oral tradition and were sung as an accompaniment to Faroese dancing. Even before 1800 Jens Christian Svabo had recorded ballads, but collecting got under way seriously after 1800, hammershaimb can be mentioned in this regard. The old ballads were seen as having historical value, but there was also interest in more recent ballads, e. g. comic ballads. One poet who attracts particular notice is Jens Christian Djurhuus, who was a farmer in Kollafjørður, the most famous of his works is Ormurin Langi, The Ballad of the Long Serpent. His most individual work, however, is perhaps Púkaljómur, an epic based on a Danish translation of ‘Paradise Lost’ by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. This was the Romantic Age, and Norse literature was much in vogue. Everything indicates that the Faroese immediately took his poetry to their hearts, in an account of a journey written in 1847-48 the ballad collector and clergyman V. U. Hammershaimb writes, The old farmer Jens Christian Djurhuus of Kollafjørður has composed many ballads based on the sagas and they attack in turn and King Olaf repulses the assaults of the two kings, but is defeated by his countryman Eiríkr Hákonarson. The outcome of the battle is known, when Olaf realises that the battle is lost and it is not known where this battle took place, with it being doubtful whether there ever was an island called Svolder. Various scenes from the drama described in the ballad appear on ten stamps, issued in 2006 by Postverk Føroya and they show shipbuilding and a launch, with the king sitting on the throne while giving an audience to Einarr Thambarskelfir. Another one shows the fleet putting out to sea, another shows the Long Serpent and the other ships heading into the straits while their adversaries stand on the shore watching them. In the Long Serpents bow there is Ulf the Red, Olafs forecastle man, while the king, there are dead bodies tumbling into the sea during the battle, which ends with Eiríkr Hákonarson capturing the Long Serpent and so taking command of the vessel. The location where the song is composed is unknown, the oldest version dates back to 1819 and was made by Jóannes í Króki of Sandur. He also collected a version in 1823, when Svend Grundtvig and Jørgen Bloch edited Føroya kvæði, an anthology of Faroese folksongs, around 1880, they knew of six recordings of the ballad. A version in the poets own hand turned up at a later date, nowadays the ballad is referred to as Ormurin Langi, but that was not the title used by the poet himself. He referred to it as Olaf Trygvasons kvad, and other recorders did that as well and it was not until a version from around 1846 that it was discovered that the song got its title from Olaf Trygvasons ship

Ormurin Langi
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The launching of the ship, from a Faroese stamp commemorating the ballad

119.
Hans Andrias Djurhuus
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Hans Andrias Djurhuus was a Faroese poet and teacher. He is well known for his poems and for his childrens songs. He also edited the newspaper Dúgvan from 1909 to 1910, Djurhuus was born and died in Tórshavn. His brother Janus Djurhuus, who was two years older, is one of the well-known poets of the Faroe Islands. Both were born and raised in a house in the old part of Tórshavn, which is called Áarstova, down in the Eastern Harbour, Hans Andrias Djurhuus was one of the most productive Faroese poets. The brothers great grandfather was Jens Christian Djurhuus, who was the first to write poems in the Faroese language, after finishing school Hans Andreas worked as a fisherman for a short period, then attended the Føroya Fólkaháskúli. He then studied at the Teachers Seminar, graduating in 1905 and he worked as a school teacher in Sandavágur, Klaksvík, Tvøroyri and Tórshavn. 1905, Hin gamla søgan 1915, Barnarímur, new edition published in 2000, ill. by Elinborg Lützen. ISBN 99918-1-237-71916, Hildarljóð1922, Søgumál, Tórshavn, Felagið Varðin –126 pp.1925, Sjómansrímur. Tórshavn, Varðin –52 pp.1934, Morgun- og kvøldsálmar 1934, Tórshavn, Varðin –415 pp. Nytt opplag 19701936, Yvir teigar og tún. Published as a book, Tórshavn, Varðin,1947 –61 pages 1922, Eitt ár til skips 1922, Barnabókin 1927, Barnabókin, new and changed edition 19701924, Føroya søga. Tórshavn, Felagið Varðin –59 S.1952, Føroya søga, new edition published in 19631927, Beinta 1929, Ævintýr 1950, Í mánalýsi 1975, Fyrisagnir til skúlabrúks. – Tórshavn, Føroya skúlabókagrunnur,39 pp.1936 Havet song, in Norwegian translation by Peter Molaug

120.
William Heinesen
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Andreas William Heinesen was a poet, novel writer, short story writer, childrens book writer, composer and painter from the Faroe Islands. The Faroese capital Tórshavn is always the centre of Heinesens writing and his writing focuses on contrasts between darkness and light, between destruction and creativity. Then following is the struggle of man to take sides. This is not always easy, however, and the lines between good and bad are not always clearly defined, Heinesen was captivated by the mysterious part of life, calling himself religious in the broadest sense of the word. His life could be described as a struggle against defeatism with one oft-quoted aphorism of his is that life is not despair, as he was born and raised before the Faroese language was taught in the schools, he wrote mainly in Danish but his spoken language was Faroese. All his books are translated into his native Faroese. He published his first collection of poetry when he was 21 and he read every single one of the chapters to the painter Sámal Joensen-Mikines, as he was worried that his Danish wasnt good enough. That was followed up with Noatún, Noatún has a strong political message – solidarity is the key to a good society. His next book The Black Cauldron deals with the aftermath of decadent living combined with religious hysteria, in The Lost Musicians Heinesen leaves the social realism of his earlier works behind, instead giving himself over to straightforward storytelling. Mother Pleiades is an ode to his imagination and its subtitle is a Story From the Beginning of Time. Heinesen wasnt content with writing only novels, in the fifties he began writing short stories as well. Most of them have been printed in three collections entitled The Enchanted light, Gamaliels Bewitchment and Cure Against Evil Spirits. In the novel The Good Hope, his character the Rev. Peder Børresen is based on the historical person Rev. Lucas Debes. When Heinesen was asked how long it had taken to write it, but then I did other things in between He was awarded with the Danish literary prize Holberg Medal in 1960. He received The Nordic Councils Literature Prize in 1965 for his novel Det gode håb, in the story Heinesen had the difficult task of reproducing 17th-century Danish. He succeeded, and won the prize and it is widely considered his best work. When there were rumours that William Heinesen was about to receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 1981, he wrote to the Swedish Academy, later he explained why, The Faroese language was once held in little regard – indeed it was suppressed outright. In spite of this the Faroese language has created a great literature, if it had been given to me, it would have gone to an author who writes in Danish, and in consequence Faroese efforts to create an independent culture would have been dealt a blow

121.
Helena Patursson
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She also wrote the first play in the Faroese language. Her brothers Sverre Patursson and Jóannes Patursson were also well-known, Helena Patursson is the daughter of the kings farmer Poul Peder Pedersen and Ellen Cathrine Djonesen. She grew up on the kings farm Kirkjubøargarður, where she got private lessons together with her brothers, later she went to Copenhagen, where she learned piano and handiworks. She worked there as paralegal until 1904, when she returned to the Faroes, like her brothers Helena Paturson was an activist, ever since the Christmas Meeting of 1888, where the nationalist movement was founded. Her activities were mainly addressed to women, in 1889 wrote she the first play in Faroese, Veðurføst, from which unfortunately only fragments are preserved. It is about womens role in the awakening and teaching Faroese at home. She also wrote in the papers Føringatíðindi and Fuglaframi which belonged to her brothers, Jóannes, in Copenhagen she organised a womens union, and in 1896 persuaded the Faroese Association there to affiliate with women. Thus Oyggjarnar has an importance in the history of the Faroe Islands. Every issue was four pages long, it came out weekly, for instance Oyggjarnar emphasized that girls should have the same good food as boys, and articles might be written about news from Iceland or Norway as told or sent in by a Faroer who visited there. A new womens role became popular, using parts of the old farmers culture but changing into something more decorative, for example traditional wool processing becoming only something for handicrafts. A book, which was partially a compilation of her articles from Oyggjarnar, came out February 1908 and was called Matreglur fyri hvørt hús, some articles in the periodical were directly addressed to such fishermen. Excerpt from Oyggjarnar, Fríðka um búgvið was the book in 1912. But by 1908 the paper Oyggjarnar had been discontinued because she received support by her famous brothers. However, Helena Patursson was a pioneer, and her work and ideas were continued in 1952, when Kvinnufelagið was founded

Helena Patursson
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Helena Patursson as young lady in 1889 at the premiere of her play Veðurføst.

122.
Rakel Helmsdal
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Rakel Helmsdal is a Faroese writer. Her mother is the Faroese poet Guðrið Helmsdal, Rakel was born in Tårnby, Amager, Denmark, but has lived in Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands for most of her life. She lived for five years in France, where she wrote four of her books and she has taught creative writing and drama, and has also been involved in youth theatre. Together with Áslaug Jónsdóttir from Iceland and Kalle Güettler from Sweden, she has written a series of books about the little, the first book, Tey kalla meg bara Hugo, was translated into Norwegian. Books in the series have published in the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Sweden, France, Finland, Spain. Helmsdal was president of the Faroese writers association Rithøvundafelag Føroya from 2009 to 2011, Helmsdal has created her own marionette theatre, which she calls Karavella Marionett-Theatre. 1995 – Tey kalla meg bara Hugo 1996 – Søgur úr Port Janua 1997 – Hvørjum flenna likkurnar at,1998 – Drekar og annað valafólk, illustrated by Edward Fuglø2003 – Kom yvirum, Hugo. Rakel Helmsdal wrote the text, Kári Bech composed the music tónleikin, the musical work was performed in Norðurlandahúsið for 3500 children who came from villages from all around the islands. 2004 – Dimmalim for Nei.2011 - Skrímslahæddir nominated for the Fjörðuverðlaun,2013 - Veiða vind nominated for the Nordic Childrens Book Prize. 2016 - Received the West Nordic Councils Children and Youth Literature Prize for her book Hon, BFL. fo Almenna heimasíðan hjá Rakel Helmsdal

Rakel Helmsdal
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Rakel Helmsdal in 2014.

123.
Hanus Kamban
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Hanus Kamban is a Faroese short story writer, essayist, biographer and poet. He was born Hanus Andreassen, but changed his last name to Kamban in 2000, Kamban grew up on the small island of Skúvoy and moved to Tórshavn in 1956. He writes about the quite sudden modernisation of the Faroese society post World War II and he published his first short story anthology in 1980, and has translated William Shakespeare, Kafka, Graham Greene and other great writers and poets from other countries to Faroese. From 1994 to 1997 he published a three volume biography of one of the most important Faroese poets, Janus Djurhuus and it was translated into Danish and published in two volumes in 2001. He was nominated to the Nordic Councils Literature Prize for the first time in 2003 for his short story anthology Pílagrímar. In 2012 he was nominated for the time to the Nordic Councils Literature Prize, this time for his short story anthology Gullgentan. The title means The Golden Girl, Kamban won the Faroese Literature Prize, which in Faroese is called Mentanarvirðisløn M. A. Jacobsens, in 1980 and again in 1986. In 2004 he won the Faroese Cultural Prize, in February/March 2013 Kamban was invited to the Kennedy Center in Washington DC for the Nordic Cool Festival. He was one of the Nordic writers/poets on the Literature Panel with the theme In the Cracks Between the Lines – Magic Realism of the North and he was president of the Association of Writers of the Faroe Islands 1992–94. Dóttir av Proteus,1980 Við tendraðum lyktum,1982 Hotel heyst,1986 Pílagrímar 2001 Gullgentan,2010 Guldpigen,2012 Angels Place, Djurhuus – ein bókmentalig ævisøga I1995 – J. H. O. Djurhuus – ein bókmentalig ævisøga II1997 – J. H. O, Djurhuus – ein bókmentalig ævisøga III2001 J. H. O. A. Jacobsens Faroese Literature Prize for non-fiction,1986 – Literature award M. A. Jacobsens Faroese Literature Prize for fiction. 2001 – Won Listastevna Føroyas short story competition with his short story Angels Place